progress - the sixth month

Dayana's latest antics:
- greets me with 'good morning Mommy' every morning
- praises me with 'you're so smart Mommy' each time i answer whatever question she asks me
- is never too stingy with her thank you's <3 <3
- thinks that with the word 'pliz' you can get practically anything you want, the more the merrier
- asks too many questions
- sometimes asked to be carried whenever i take out a wrap/rs to try with Dinara
- she loves steamed corn (Cameron trip)
- hates strawberries (Cameron trip)
- scared of Scorpions, siap boleh ajak 'jom balik Mommy!! eeeee takutttttttttttttttttt' (with a horrific look on her face) punye la tak nak tengok all those creppy crawlies lol (Cameron trip)
- tried to make conversation with the rabbits (Cameron trip)
- if you're patient, she'll tell you alot of things, that is, in her own way. up to you to choose to understand it or not. lol
- Daddy let her watch 'Beauty & The Beast' and 'Snow White' on DVD recently. now every night she demands 'nak tengok Pwincess!'
- when asked if she wants to be Doctor Dayana tak, she replied 'Pwincess Daina lah!'
- mutters 'mana busuk?' whilst looking for that specific smelly end of her blankie
- over eager to help out, up to the point of being a niusance
- knows what she wants. sometimes you can kelentong her, sometimes you can't (they're smart, these little ones)
- learnt the phrase 'i know i know i know! maybe i can help' from higglytown heroes. i'm pretty sure she doesn't understand what it means
- pandai joget. should enrol her for classes later on
- has this annoying habit of screaming each time Dinara cries. i think it's some sort of blocking mechanism T_T which i can't seem to understand for the life of me.
- gila camera. insists to have her picture taken first above all else.

yesterday i asked her, 'how old are you?' (i thought her how to answer with 'two years old').
you know what she answered? 'no old!'

T_T.


Dinara's progress:
- adores her elder sister to bits despite being bullied most of the time
- already knows how to roll. the bed is no longer a safe place to put her down
- she likes to be on her tummy, a complete opposite from Dayana
- is starting to stare at us with interest each time we stuff food into our mouths
- is getting good at grabbing things now
- i dunno how much she weighs this month. she'll be 6 months by the end of the February
- my favorite wrappee!
- smiles alot. my little miss sunshine
- grabs hold of her foot sometimes for inspiration, has yet to try to stuff it into her mouth
- once she's full and happy, she's able to doze off on her own
- has successfully rolled off the bed in her room (and onto her pillow, no wonder she didn't cry, i found her lying on the pillows just gurgling to herself -.-)
- doesn't like drinking water. tried giving her water but she's smart, she knows it ain't milk
- sudah pandai geget! tsk. whenever i scold her, you know what she does? she looks up at me and SMILES. chis.
- tolerates sitting in the Bumbo seat for awhile staring at the colorful stickers Bibik placed on the seat for Dayana a long time ago (am so happy i didn't sell the seat!)
- her hair's really wild, yet thin. and the small spot on her head hasn't had any hair regrowth. oh well. not really noticeable these days.

i'm getting really crappy at updating the kid's progress. the older they get the harder it is to keep track of each and every tiny milestone. or maybe it's just me hahaha.

my youngest sis is touring India now, hoping to get a glimpse of SRK. but do you know where he is now? yep, he's in MALAYSIA. ahahah sungguh potong steam. keke.

i decided to change the layout of my blog. hope the alignments don't run.

so... kanga got stuck in customs. haha. on Valentine's day. haizzz. i'll blog about it later when i get it. as for now, i'm stashified. at least i think so. let me enjoy my fluffies and at the same time work butt magic on them. to see which stays and which goes. and i'm still waiting for sampan country's parcel to arrive @_@

someone wants to stalk me tonight. haha.

so ok toodles. it's Cap Goh Meh today. i suppose those who are still looking for a parter will be off throwing oranges and apples into lakes? i heard some DJ was going to throw a banana to try his luck. haha.

i'll add photos later, feels kinda boring without photos, don't you think?

what's up with June

i guess you could say i'm 27 weeks pregnant now (according to the ticker la. i've lost count these days). i'm back to the babywearing sickness phase, where i now feel like selling off all my wraps and my mei tais. haha.

oh oh i got myself into the customs list! i was over the moon about this because i never seem to have any luck when it comes to first come first serve. it didn't help that my internet connection got disrupted a few minutes after the custom list opened. i am so happy to actually be in the list, although i barely made it (other M'sian mamas had better luck than i did) but still, i find it a plus to be at the back of the list coz i don't need to rush in deciding right away how i'd like mine to be. heehee. and i get to recover my funds first =P. i'm seriously contemplating using mandarin as leverage for later.

work-wise... i'm slowly adapting to the environment a bit better compared to the first few months i was here. probably due to reporting to a new boss (who kinda resembles ming na wen) who seems so much more understanding in a whole lot of ways, or probably i've passed the so-called transition process and am finally 'adjusting', but i'm not totally out of the woods yet. i'm still not sure what i see myself to be doing long term, but i have to agree i've learnt alot more here than i ever would if i were to stay loyal to my former company. i can't entirely blame what i feel about work right now on my pregnancy situation, but i remember i used to have the same feeling last time - a total disconnection. bahh.

i haven't been keeping up with updates on Dayana these days. i guess i'm going to regret this at some point in my life.

in another 3 months Dayana will be 2 years old. Daddy is exposing her to doses of Sesame Street daily. Daddy wants her to grow up to be a smart girl, so we plan to send her to school once she turns two years old. she picks up Malay words faster than she does English words. it gets harder and harder for me to figure out what she wants sometimes, which makes it frustrating for the both of us, haha. some words she pronounces in her own way:
- flower : fai
- frog : flossie
- keropok : pokok
- aikim : ice cream, chocolate bar also she calls it 'aikim'
- air uncle : any colored drink i.e. orange juice, sirap... tsk
- akut bike : the first word means 'scared', but i have no idea what 'bike' means. she's trying to tell me she's afraid of something but i have no idea what -.-

sometimes she has a tough time making up her mind on whether she wants milk or water before she goes to sleep at night. when you give her milk, she'll say 'air' but when you give her air, she'll say 'susu'. tsk. she usually sleeps in the adjacent room that's connected to ours. but in the middle of the night if she wakes up she'll come all the way to find me to ask for susu, and she'll drag her Chewy along (her main pre-requisite to get her to fall alseep every night).

she is still loving her Spongebob. the other day at Najua's daughter's party when giving out party favors, my daughter chose the yellow Spongebob bag over the pink Barbie bag. hahaha. we bought her a Barney bag recently at Toys R Us for her, and she loves that too. she'd sling one of the straps around her neck and parade around the room with it. she calls it 'mani'. she had sooo much fun in Toys R Us at the Empire the other day, i guess it's like to Toy Heaven to her. everything also she wanted to grab off the shelves and haul it around the store. rambang mata tengok lego, thomas, mickey, the toy bikes and goodness knows what else. she found an abandoned toy stroller in one of the aisles and started pushing it about. hehehe. a good way to keep her distracted while Daddy went off to see if he could find anything for his Transformers collection.

my little shopper hard at work lol

when i'm busy cutting my nails or if i'm in the midst of putting on some lotion, she'll come up to me and offer her leg, saying 'kaki' or 'kuku' or 'minyak' depending on whatever it is that i'm doing. apparently she also wants in on the fun of putting lotion on her leg or cut her toenails. lol. when she's over at my mom's she loves to bully her two aunts Angah and Ashu. she'll force Angah to get her down on her knees to the same eye level as her, and sometimes even asks Angah to carry her (mana Angah larat! hahaha). she loves eating out of Angah's bowl. she still pick fights with Rusty over the green rocking chair. sungguh tak reti nak share ini budak. tsk. and when my mom's in the kitchen preparing food, she'll go and steal a couple of my mom's pots and pans and say 'asak' (she also want to masak lah) and she prefers to play with real utensils as opposed to her toy set. chee~.

when her diaper is full, she'll come to me and say 'mami yak'. when she poops also she does the same thing. but she doesn't show me any indication before she passes motion. so i'm not sure if i should start potty training her now, or if i should wait a bit until she turns two (it's more of a matter of mommy-is-malas-to-potty-train-her hahahah).

football season is coming up. we got Astro to come by to install Astro Beyond (after i had to call them up practically every day because they never delivered as promised within the specified time frame). and for the past few weeks we kept getting disruptions in our channel services, despite the day being sunny! (it's like we're paying for nothing, grrr). hopefully with the installation of the new dish the services will resume to normal. Dayana hasn't had her dose of Cartoon Network, Playhouse Disney and Nickelodeon for quite some time already. haha.

it's raining outside and i'm really sleepy now. i was so hoping for iPhone 3G to land in June but apparently it got postponed to July pulak. tsk. at this rate iPhone 4G will come out first and 3G will merely be considered as a way to get rid of the old stock. haha.

Dayana = 17 months

happy federal territory day to the KLians. too bad i'm no longer a KL-citizen. i'm officially now known as another kind of 'zen. hahah.

so. dayana is 17 months old already =). i haven't been up-to-date on her daily progress these days (she evolves really fast for me to keep track of all her milestones lol). i received my monthly Babycentre updates just now in the mail and some points mentioned about her current acheivements got me a bit intruiged - because they seemed to relate to her at the moment =P.

1. If "no" hasn't already become her favourite word, she'll begin using it with a vengeance.there was one time when Daddy was trying to get her to understand the word no'. he'd tell her 'No Dayana, no' whenever she wanted to try and fiddle with Daddy's laptop. then one day when he was still trying to get her to understand that she shoudn't do a particular something, out of the blue, she replied back to her Daddy, 'no!'. hahahahah boy i was real surprised. he managed to teach her how to say the word instead of understanding the meaning. hahahahaha.

and now? she's gotten really smart at when she can use the word. take yesterday for instance. we were taking a look at some properties and this particular showroom had a mini playroom to keep kids occupied while the parents rounded the showroom. they had this playslide which Dayana absolutely took delight in, sampai takmo balik. when i told her, 'ok Dayana, let's go home' you know what she said? 'nonononononono!'. aiyak. menangis tak ingat when we dragged her back into the car. kekekeke.

this happens alot whenever we let her go on any kind of rides and such. punye syiok until tak nak balik. haiz. she'll scream her lungs out each time we drag her away.whenever we want her to do anything and she doesn't want to do, she'll reply you with 'no' in a vengeance-like kinda way. haiz. i think 'no' is overrated. now we need her to think positive and say 'yes' pulak. haha.

2. Toddlers are famously picky eaters.i am officially out of ideas on how to get her to eat a variety of food. she'll practically spit out any form of lumpy food once she detects it. i need to invest in more toddler bibs at this rate, i tak larat nak basuh baju already @@. currently she'll happily eat plain rice (softened up with soup), plain bread (any form of spread on top is a nono), biscuits or cereal (she used to love Biskut tiger until she graduated to more sweeter biscuits, and if cereal she'll be happy to crunch on Honey stars and Koko Krunch), porridge (assuming all the additional ingredients are mashed up beyond recognition), spaghetti... er, what else. any unfamiliar food she will immediately reject - i tried to give her organic pumpkin + apples + xxx and she didn't like it, even though the taste is actually not bad. pergh. but she enjoys her milk though. she'll never say no to that.

other things i've noticed about her:

3. she still refuses to let me to brush her teeth. and if she does, she'll want my toothbrush and not hers. cheh. she'll brush her teeth for a few seconds and chew on the toothbrush for a bit before declaring herself done with the task. previously each time i ask her to brush her teeth (and even demo'd by showing her how i brush my own teeth), she'll want to brush mine instead -.-. she also finds the taste of the toothpaste weird. lol.

4. she is officially a youtube junkie! Daddy downloaded a bunch of cartoon theme song clips for her to watch on iPhone whenever she gets bored during journeys. latest videoclips she finds interesting is 'alif ba ta' songs. her current music favorite is Shaun the Sheep (it's Shaun the Sheep, it's Shaun the Sheep~). hehe. i kinda like the show too. reminds me of Wallace & Gromit, you know, where all the characters look like they're made out of clay. haha.

5. after coming back from her grandparent's place in Bangi last weekend, she now refuses her pacifier. weird huh. i was planning to get her weaned off her pacifier soon, but she decided to reject it all by herself. kinda reminds me of the time she rejected breastfeeding all by herself one fine day. even during sleepy time she doesn't want it. but because of this i find it very difficult to get her to go to sleep. she sleeps as late as me! gwahhh.

6. she still hasn't got the hang of saying 'Mommy'. sheesh. if 'mama' terre sangat lah. 'Daddy' lagi pro. hilang je Daddy out of her sight, she'll go 'De-di? De-di?' sambil tengok keliling looking for her Daddy. chis.

... so these are a few milestones that i can recall at the back of my head. i'll update more later as i gradually gain my memory.

updates on me:i officially hate chocolate. it makes me feel sick. i know i shouldn't have taken Kit Kat for breakfast. now i'm having some kind of upset tummy =(. i wonder if i can take the rest of the day off. huhu.

Dayana is 1y 2mo

i've been super busy the past month, don't ask me doing what, i just felt like my whole head has been serabut for the month of October. my memory is getting from bad to worse. can anyone kindly suggest a solution to my problem? anyway, October was also the month when Significant Other left for the States so i had half the month mostly to myself, especially since it was difficult to get a suitable time to Skype, what with the 13-hour time difference. it was also during this time that Dayana started to show signs of having her own individual personality. and some of the traits she used to have earlier seems to be slowly fading. weird.

# for starters, she started to walk just as Daddy left the country. how cool is that? walk here, walk there. experimenting, falling on her butt (thank God for her padded tush), grabbing everything at sight *kepala pusing*. Daddy bought her a new pair of hard-soled Clarks for her to wear. it's bright pink. totally clashes with 3/4 of her wardrobe. hahahaha. oh and she can already fit into the shoes Uncle Fahmi and Auntie Johanna bought for her aeons ago. she loves wearing her shoes so much (she'll pick them up and bring them to me to put them on her little feet) so i've made those shoes to become her house shoes to be worn indoors. lol.

# i guess it's normal for every baby to buat semak? she is so the very pandai at making a mess. scoot... scoot... sepah sepah.... finish... then off to scoot to another place... continue to sepah... hahahah. i think every baby is born with this skill. i put all her toys into one big box. once i set her on the floor, she'll toddle towards the box and get to work by grabbing everything in the box and throwing them onto the floor (like she's looking for something, padahal gaya je lebih, chis). tried teaching her to clean up after herself. sometimes she'll do it, but then she'll just grab the toy she just threw in back onto the floor -.-.

# she likes to flip through her small board books that Uncle Alif bought for her. her favorite book is the animal book where there's a picture of a cat in it. i guess it reminds her of Rusty. hahaha. sometimes she'll kiss the cat photo by putting her forehead to the book. lol. the books that her Auntie Yaya gave her are also her favorites. when she's stuck in her crib i just leave her a couple of books to occupy herself. it works... sometimes =P. before she starts screaming her head off wanting down.

# sometimes she'll grab your hand when she wants your help on something, like pointing to a picture in one of her books, or during the time we went to my uncle's house at Melawati and we were just about to eat pizza. i guess she got impatient so she grabbed my hand and steered it towards the direction of the pizza, lol.

# she'll step onto the grass ONLY if she's wearing shoes. she landed on her butt once on the grass and totally refused to push herself up until someone picked her up. haha. my mom has this green carpet-mat-thingy (like the mats often found in cars) in the kitchen which she refuses to step on. i guess she thinks it's grass. hahahahahha.

# she'll give you a high five is you ask for it. this one was taught by Auntie Nor. lol.

# she knows where her belly button is. is you ask her, "where's your belly button?" she'll lift up her blouse and point to her own belly button. she's also fascinated with other people's belly button too. she'll prod and poke. geli ok. lol.

# knows where other people's nose is except her own. if you ask her "where's your nose?" she'll point to your nose, anyone's nose la, except her own. kekekeke. susah ini mau ajar the parts of her body.

# talks like org besar but ntah ape2 she bebel dengan penuh confidentnye, it's in her own incoherent language. hehe. it's nice when they babble like this. it's like they totally understand what they're talking about. but one word (or syllable) that she seems to like to say more often (well, it sounds like it) is 'tak boleh'. hahaha. or more like 'taboley!'

# shakes her body to music. she's a fan of all the songs / adverts on Playhouse Disney.

# she likes to see other kids her size and same eye level. i think she's bored of being around oldies like us. hahahaha. she'll want to go up to the kid and play. sometimes they'll play with her, sometimes she'll be ignored. lol. i'm very happy we had that outing to MV with the other mamas, she at least got to mix with kids her own age. should do this more often =).

dayana mingling with fatnin lol

# she can already tell the difference. like the other day i bought her a pacifier to replace the one she's been using like, forever. the one she has was pink, so i got her a green one. she spat out the new one and insisted on having the old one. haiz. i tried tricking her yet she still knew the difference. membazir jerk beli. but funnily enough, i bought her another Chewy, this time in green but she didn't mind the difference in color. cheese.

# like i said, she knows the difference. like when we're eating together and she refuses her own food, wanting to eat from Daddy's plate. but if we pretend to take food from Daddy's plate and feed her her own food, mau pulak. hahaha.

# i found one of those release tension balls that you squeeze when you're stressed (to kononnye release stress) and we play catch when she's in her crib. she'll throw it onto my bed and i'll just throw it back to her. she finds that amusing.

# she waves bye bye, after a lot of prompting.

# she's seems to be starting to have clear ideas about what she wants. hence, the protesting. when she points to something that she wants, she'll be determined to get it. she'll mengamuk if you don't give it to her. she especially loves remote controls and my phone. press press press pressssss... habis setting aircond, and the astro settings, yada yada, haiz. but sometimes she can be distracted by something else, but you hafta be quick about it. she is smart, after all, haha.

# she can still fit into her S size Drybees. haha. tiny and prim =P.

# if you give her a comb she'll try to comb her own hair (or she'll offer to comb yours), but so far she hasn't grasped the technique yet. just like how she'll grab my phone and imitate talking on the phone, but she'll rest the phone on her shoulder instead of by her ear. hahaha.

just keep combing...

well, that's about the few things i remember. i guess you could say her major achievement would be starting to walk. most of her milestones focus on her exploring her surroundings on her own. and you know how a baby that just found her legs can get. expect rarer occasions of babywearing from the mommy's end =(.

once she got her legs, tak hirau dah bende lain

is it time to make product #2? lol.

moving up the ladder to 13mo

so my little dot turns 13 months today. for the record, here's what she's been up to ever since she turned One...

# she's good at figuring how things work on her own, after seeing someone doing it. like i was lifting the end of the carpet in my bedroom to sweep under it and she saw me. later on i caught her sibuk-sibuk peeking under the carpet, looking for goodness knows what. she also enjoys opening boxes and emptying them out, only to make a huge mess strewn all over the floor. no guesses as to how she figured out that boxes can be opened.

# her sleep patterns has changed a bit. sometimes she can go on for hours on end without daytime naps. probably because of sugar high. must remember not to give her any sugary stuff before bedtime.

# she's good at throwing tantrums by making her body go limp / keras if doesn't get what she wants. especially if we take things from her. she has a strong grip. she'll start babbling nonsense (in protest) and starts crying once we manage to take the item away from her. usually it'll be things that she's not supposed to play with in the first place.

# she babbles nonsense now - spanish? german? swedish? i can't really make out what she's trying to say. at what age will baby babble start to make any sense?

# whenever Daddy tells her no, she'll start to cry. it's as if she understands that what she's doing is wrong, hehe. buat muke kesian pulak.

# if she's holding a toy and we ask her to give it to us, she'll hold her arm out, then tarik balik, like main acah-acah only, huhu. but sometimes she'll hand it to us if she's in a good mood, but then she'll mintak balik the toy, haha. otherwise she'll just campak jer kluar her crib. that's her favorite thing to do these days. my back dah patah just picking up the pieces off the floor.

# she understands a few words now, like she'll point to Mickey Mouse if we ask her where Mickey Mouse is, or where is Ashu, then she'll point to her youngest Aunty. things like that. people and those little things that she often interacts with. been trying to teach her to salam but so far to no avail. now we're working on her to kiss Mommy and Daddy =P.

# she's a clapping pro now. whenever she hears Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, she'll make genggam-ing motions with her fists. she hasn't managed to master the technique yet, but that'll suffice at the moment, haha. she sways to the music too, macam dancing, kekekeke.

# she's still stuck onto her Chewy. and she still uses her pacifier to sleep. i think i need to get another Chewy for her. she loves to gnaw on the ends of the blanket. she won't go to sleep as easily without her Chewy. haiz. she's just like her Daddy.

# she's showing signs of wanting to eat by herself, but i shudder each time i think off the potential mess that i have to clean up after. i think i need to get a high chair and a splat mat first. a mobile-eating baby can end up in disastrous results.

# 4 teeth is out, another top 2 looks like they're about to appear soon. i have no idea how to brush her teeth. the other day i stuck my finger in her mouth and she clamped her teeth shut and bit as hard as she could. OUCH.

# she doesn't teeth on her teething toys, she prefers to gnaw on her crib instead -.- is there a place that sells those plastic protectors for the crib? she's gnawing the paint right off the crib.

# i can assure you she hates wearing anything on her head. be it any kind of hat or sunnies, she'll surely try her hardest to get it off her head. sigh. the only thing that i can do which she doesn't mind is to tie her hair up into a coconut ponytail. her hair is really wavy i've gotten tons of compliments for it =). i love it too.

trying to rip the hat off her head

# if last month she didn't like to smile for the camera, this month she does now.

showing off her teethbuds

# sudah terrer menjerit. screaming, testing out her lungs capacity.

# you know the art of swinging a baby? i think munirah of tripletsplusone exercises this with her kids. some parents might think their limbs might tercabut, or seem hazardous, but Dayana absolutely loves it. i'll look up the benefits of this and let you know later.

# she knows she can view children songs on Daddy's iPhone. previously she was only interested in my flip phone and didn't even glance at Daddy's latest gadget. now that she knows songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and ABC can be viewed on the iPhone, she'll demand for it each time she sees Daddy pulling it out. hehe. habiss.

# she eats practically everything given to her - biskut raya, grapes, even nasi. i noticed that if there was a choice between her porridge and our food, she'll prefer our food, spitting back out her porridge. sheesh. we need to get a high chair for her soon. Ikea is in mind. simple and cheap.

# sibuk nak tekan the keys on the laptop just to annoy Mommy and Daddy, especially when she knows that she shouldn't do so. sometimes her eyes are somewhere else, but her fingers are all over the keyboard. multitasking kot. every nook and cranny oso mau perosek.

press press press...

# she still loves to flip through her books without actually reading them. but sometimes when i abandon her in her crib, she'll entertain herself by actually observing the colorful illustrations on each page. hee. still have to stick with boardbooks though. she'll tear paper apart.

# she's more friendlier towards people, surprisingly, although not 100% of the time. i noticed during the raya celebrations that she'll warm up to you much faster if you choose to initially leave her alone to explore by herself, as opposed to you coming up to her and breathing down her neck.

# shows signs of wanting to walk, attempting to stand most of the time with her feet wide apart to stabilize herself, haha. usually 2-3 steps before she lands on her butt. she knows how to climb stairs, but she doesn't know how to climb down them.

# she loves our Tickle Me Elmo. unfortunately the mechanism dah lingkup. does anyone know of a place where i can fix Elmo?

# she likes trains! Daddy's thinking of getting her a Thomas (... waitaminit, is this for Dayana or Daddy?)

on a separate note, Daddy is now fixed onto the show, the Wizards of Waverly Place. hahahaha.

Dayana's 1 milestone

my baby has finally turned One! she's officially left babyhood behind her, moving on to toddlerhood. God, it felt like only yesterday i gave birth to her (okay, maybe i'm overdoing it, since i don't really remember the pain i went through trying to bring her into the world, haha).

it's been a hectic 12-month - 1 year transition, what with planning her birthday and all (August was a really congested month!) so before i forget, here's her One Year progress (those that i can remember):

-- she still pull my glasses off when she suddenly feels like it. not sure why. she doesn't really throw a tantrum if i take my glasses away from her like she usually does whenever i take something away from her involuntarily. i think she does this only to annoy Mommy. haha.

-- she loves to pull my hair whenever i get too close! haha. sakit ok when she pulls. she thinks it's funny or something. she doesn't like Daddy's hair, it's too short to be pulled (but she does find Daddy's carpet of a janggut geli to the touch, kekeke). sometimes she pulls her own hair. but only if i put something on her head and she'll try her very best to take it off, be it hats or sunnies or headbands.

-- i tried teaching her to wave, but she doesn't do this often. only when she feels like it. i first noticed her waving on her own one time when we had dinner with Megat and Hasmah and we were about to part ways. she will never wave bye bye to Mommy and Daddy. i think she thinks that if she does, it will mark the finality of Mommy and Daddy abandoning her for the day, lol.

-- i'm also trying to teach her how to raise her hand. like, 'siapa nama Dayana, raise their hand?'. she needs a little prompting before she will want to raise her hand. sometimes we'll have to raise our hands first before she does. haha. i don't think she understands what's going on yet.

-- this month i noticed that she doesn't really like to smile for the camera anymore. maybe it's just a phase. or maybe Mommy's been talking too many photos of her and she's tired of all the 'publicity'. haha. and i realized in the photos of how much her mouth resembles the Daddy.

-- she loves turning the pages of a book, be it any kind of book. turn turn turn turn, not even stopping to see what's on the page. i haven't even finished reading the page to her when she insists on turning to the next page. @@

-- whenever she wants to mengamuk, just give her my SE phone and she'll be all smiles again. i mean give you this really big grin each time she sees my wallpaper of her face in my phone. she doesn't really fancy other kinds of phone, just mine. probably because it's a flip phone? her own toy phone pun kalah. she's really good at pressing buttons now. the other time she even managed to call Hasmah in the middle of thie night T_T. i just can't figure out how to lock the keypad of the z610i. anyone knows?

-- when she's up to it, she'll throw everything out of her crib. her pillow, her bolsters, her blanky, her chewy, her stuffed toys Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Elephant, Bear, and every other stray item in her crib. spring cleaning, perhaps? she finds it hilarious each time i pick them up and put them back in, and do you know what she'll do? she'll throw them out again! grrrr. like i got nothing better to do picking up things on the floor for her amusement. i think in the BabyCentre they mentioned somewhere about how children this age love to see things drop to the floor, and even love seeing the mommies and daddies pick them up. and repeatedly do the same thing for whatever reason i do not know. haiz.

-- she finally has teeth visible! after months and months and months of waiting. usually people will say the bottom two will come out first. in Dayana's case, her top two came out first. the bottom? only one. weird. hehe. i'm gonna have to look up brushing for babies. once i tried brushing my teeth in front of her. she seemed fascinated enough then.

-- Dayana fell sick for the first time, not because of an injection. we were pretty worried too. the poor thing fell sick a day before her first birthday. we actually brought her to the clinic twice. with the h1n1 running amok throughout the world, you could never be too cautious. and mind you, i've never had the experience of nursing a sick child back to health before, so you could say i kinda panicked. especially when there occasional spikes in her temperature, i quickly sponged her down with tepid water with the hopes that her temp will go down. thank goodness my little one is better now =).

looks like i got lots to read up on how to care for and educated a one year old. my previous readings were only for babies below One!

(pics later)

Dayana - one month to ONE year

she's 11 months old!

another 1 month and it's Merdeka! and also Dayana's birthday =D. i'm not sure how we're going to celebrate her very first birthday. it's puasa month so i don't think it'll be much fun if you're not able to pig out during a birthday party and everyone will be busy with terawikh in the evening. so we might postpone any sort of plans at the moment. or maybe we'll have a small family celebration first =). i know diana's been asking me when am i gonna have a party for her. lol (i should ask diana balik, when is she and nico getting married? susu's done for already =P).

not much updates though, July's been a busy month so i didn't really keep a close eye on her progress that month. some of the things i can remember though:

-- one time she was in her crib, and i gave her a cucumber to chew on. you know what she did? she offered her cucumber to her stuffed toys. how sweet is that? she offered the cucumber to Bear's leg, Elly's ear and Pooh's nose. lol! too bad i didn't manage to get a video of her doing that. it's like a one-time thing. lol.

Bear, Elly and Pooh

-- one day she was hanging out in her crib, and i was talking to her for a bit when suddenly she started clapping her hands, only for an instant. and i was like, do it again for Mommy, Dayana! i started clapping my hands and telling her 'clap clap clappy', and you know what? she obliged! yay! hehe. we can now sing If You're Happy and You Know It and she'll voluntarily clap her hands. hehe. she'll need a bit of prompting though. the funny part was right after she discovered the art of clapping, she practically clapped at everything in sight. sikit-sikit clappy clappy, lol. raya is coming up soon, i need to teach her how to salam. and she still hasn't mastered waving yet.

-- since she's getting bigger i thought i'd teach her to sleep in her own crib. previously her crib was abandoned in the next room collecting dust, with only her stuffed toys residing in it (and Significant Other got her ALOT of them). it was a hassle having her in the next room, i'd have to check in on her very often to see how she's doing despite having a baby monitor. and since she was getting bigger Significant Other complained there was no room on the bed (i told him to go purchase a King-sized bed) so i wheeled her crib into our room. so far Dayana's pretty okay with the crib. before this whenever i put her in the crib she'll scream like mad as if i'm abandoning her in it. at night she'll go to sleep in her crib if all the room lights are turned off. else she'll just pull herself up and hang onto the crib rails. i only wish her crib was slightly bigger though, more room for her to move around. my mom has already dismantled the crib and cradle at my parent's place, reasoning that she's not using the crib anyway. the cradle can't be used anymore since Dayana is prone to standing up now, she might fall over.

hiya mommy!

-- she's furniture cruising now. sungguh efisyen ok. sedar-sedar she can get from point A to point B in 5 seconds flat. poor her, though. she doesn't have much space to crawl around in our sempit room. and mil's house isn't designed to be babyproof (one really hazardous house in my opinion). she's even experimenting standing on her own without holding on to anything. there's the occasional bumps of course, she isn't a pro at it yet. swaying is more like it. hee~

-- Daddy bought her a pair of sunnies not too long ago. tried getting her to wear it but she'll end up ripping them off her face. she'll take off anything we put on her head too unfortunately (we haven't fully utilized Liz's snugg hat lately, huhu). she prefers waving the sunnies around in the air. but the one thing she did learn from this experience is that she now knows Mommy's glasses can be detached from Mommy's face so she'll grab my glasses at any chance she gets whenever i get too close T_T. so not good. my glasses screws are now loose and it feels out of shape. i wonder if i should now put in a claim for new glasses.

in her sunnies. we had to hold her hands else she'll pull it off her face!

the primary usage of her sunnies

-- if last month her overly-used word is 'aaay', this time it's 'ooooo'. she'll shape her mouth into an 'O', and let out the OoOoOoOO sound, followed by giving you this really amazed look on her face. like kagum habis-habisan. hahahah. she seems very fascinated with everything. sometimes you just want to laugh.

"OoOoooOOo..."

-- she has no teeth yet. some say it's a good thing, i won't have to worry about brushing her teeth. some say it's genetics, but my mom says i started teething early. Significant Other pulak says he started early too. dunno la...

-- chewy is still her favorite! =P~

well, that's all i can think of for her 11th month =)

two months until One

i wish i had a couple more pair of eyes to keep on Dayana. once she figures out how to move about by herself with no fear of getting hurt, we need to start to babyproof the house!

she's beginning to master the crawling stage. crawl here, crawl there, picking up every single foreign object she could get her little pair of hands on. and then into her mouth it goes T_T. tried holding her up by the arms but she shows no interest in ta-teh yet =P.

she likes to pull herself up into a standing position by grabbing onto any piece of furniture and hanging on for dear life... and is unable to sit back down into a sitting position. she started doing this just about the time Significant Other left for Libya. so she'll hang there until she gets bored and starts wailing for someone to rescue her. hehe.

hanging onto the bed

she will even let go of whatever piece of furniture she's holding on to if she knows that someone is nearby to catch her if she falls. which leads to...

has had a couple of slips and falls, but nothing major (alhamdulillah).

whenever we say nOOOOoOo, she'll stop and turn to look at us innocently (as if she understands that what she's doing is wrong), give us her cheeky smile and then continue with whatever it is she was doing like nothing happened. hahaha. sometimes i wonder if she's just testing to see what Mommy and Daddy will do if she continues to do something that she knows she's not allowed to.

she is more comfortable with her walker now =D.

she finally came to notice that ants exist during one of her crawling escapades and even tried prodding one with her finger (i heard her Uncle Akmal tried to eat them when he was a baby =P).

Significant Other bought a shape sorter for her from Toys r Us, a development toy to stimulate the brain cells and coordination (and learn about shapes in the process). Significant Other used to love it as a kid so he thought Dayana might like it as well. so far she hasn't come to realize that the shapes needs to be put into the appropriate shaped holes in the box, so at the moment she is contented with putting all the shapes back into the box through the main opening of the box. oh well. at least she gets the idea that the shapes should go into the box. haha. i tried teaching her how to push the shapes through the corresponding holes and cheered each time a shape successfully fell into the box. she took a triangle and attempted to force it into the box the wrong way. then she got irritated and simply threw the triangle away. hahaha.

Daddy bought her a Pooh from Libya but she didn't really take to it. i don't think she's interested in stuffed toys yet. perhaps when she's older. but she enjoys the toy phone from Fischer Price that i convinced Significant Other to get for her since she absolutely loves to kemam my phone, up to the point that my charger is unable to detect the phone T_T.

noticed she will only fall asleep at night with all the lights off in a quiet environment. else she'll refuse to sleep. Daddy's been having a How I Met Your Mother marathon at night the past couple of days and si kecik tu pun sibuk marathon skali.

went to the Dr. last Wednesday to check on the bites on her legs (just in case) which seem to have disappeared when i arrived at the Dr.'s. the Dr. gave her Eurax to relieve the pain (smacks forehead). according to the Dr., her height and weight is fine, she is one small healthy baby girl, so there was nothing i should worry about. at ten months old, she weighs at 7kg =P.

in the beginning she liked to babble syllables like 'da da' or 'ma ma' or 'na na'. her latest word jargon is 'aaaaay!' (the letter A? hey? ey! go figure). she'll go like 'aaaaaay!' most of the time. when we try to engage her in conversations, she'll 'aaaaaaay!' all the way. sometimes we counter by saying 'B', or 'C' (trying to get her to pronounce something new)... she'll continue repeating the 'aaaaaay!', siap with the annoying tone as if she was tired of repeating herself to Mommy and Daddy. lol.

Dayana: aaay!
Daddy: Beeeee
Dayana: aaaaaaay!
Daddy: Ceeeeee
Dayana: aaay aaay aaay aaay~~~! (annoyed tone)

LOL.

two more months until Dayana turns the big ONE. it'll be the fasting month on her birthday. should we have a small celebration for her? =P

my favorite number 9

happy 9 months Dayana!

here's a short list of her monthly progress =D

1. she's confirmed bored with her toys already. bought her Lamaze stacking rings and her very first doll. haven't given them to her yet though. bought them when she wasn't around. is the Lamaze soft sorter worth buying?

2. likes to interact with Rusty. Rusty is quite okay with Dayana pulling his legs and tail sometimes. she likes to yell at Rusty, especially when he starts climbing walls. hahah. she hasn't mastered patting him yet.

3. has this little habit of patting you on the arm... learnt from watching Little Einsteins?

4. wakes up in the middle of the night when she wants to poop. she used wake up at 2am when Daddy was away. Daddy would Skype at 2am and automatically she'll wake up at that time. so i try to put her to sleep earlier... which sometimes works, sometimes does not.

5. sometimes it's difficult to get her to sleep early at night, even after having only short naps during the day. sometimes all it takes is to turn off all the lights and lie down beside her before she decides that she's actually sleepy. the maid has an even more difficult time putting her to sleep, even with the buai.

6. lompat lompat lompat! (yerp, still her fav).

7. doesn't wanna breastfeed as she used to when she was younger *sigh*. she practically struggles in my arms and arch her back and CRIES whenever i attempt to hold her in cradle position, as if she's about to be poisoned or something. i don't think farrahar's theory of teething is one of the reasons why she's behaving like this *sigh lagi*.

8. is more open to the relatives in the family and the occassional strangers, but if she sees Mommy or Daddy she will immediately reach out to grab her us and insisting we carry her instead =D.

9. ada gaya when attempting to drink from any kind of cup. but she hasn't mastered the sipping part yet. hehe.

10. shows signs of separation anxiety sometimes when Mommy leaves her for work in the morning. but is easily pujuked, so a sigh or relief for now.

11. on 19th may noticed signs of her two bottom tooth emerging. but until now they seem determined not to show face. oh well. as long as Dayana isn't uncomfortable...

12. we used to bribe her to move forward by placing things she's never played with in front of her out of her reach. apparently it worked, haha. in the last week of May she recently started crawling! even though she's a little bit unstable... lol. one evening when Mommy got home she abandoned her xylophone to clumsily attempt to crawl to Mommy! she will then try to 'climb' Mommy... meaning pillow barriers will no longer be applicable anymore...

13. am contemplating buying a walker to keep her occupied. what do you think?

my cutie pie in her Carter's dress

eight month old Dayana

my little girl is 8 months old! but Daddy's in Dubai at the moment, though. don't worry, will take more photos of her to show (and i really need to get around to developing them).

here's her 8 months milestone:

1. i dunno how much she weighs because her next immunization isn't until her first birthday. so no weighing machine available.

2. she sleeps on her side sometimes. before falling asleep she will twist and turn for a bit before she settles herself to sleep. sometimes she overdoes it and flops over on to her tummy. usually i'll have to stop her from doing this if not she'll never fall asleep. she sleeps with her Chewy =D

3. she doesn't smile at just anyone now. she'll peer at you very carefully at first before deciding if you're friend or foe. if you're friend, she'll give you her gummy grin. if you're foe, she'll keep giving you the icy stare.

4. despite the smile-factor, she's more accepting towards strangers, i've noticed. i find it amazing that she didn't kick up a fuss with the maid on the first day she arrived at the house. if we go to my inlaws place it'll take a while before she warms up to the members of the family.

5. she just found out that she has a very powerful voice. the past week she's been testing her voice power by belting out mariah carey screams. hahahaha. i noticed this development last week when my maid first started taking care of her while Mommy and Daddy go to work.

6. apart from screaming, she meniaraps at every opportunity. so far we need more than 2 pairs of eyes to keep tabs on her. if we put her down on the floor mat, the next thing you know she'd be stuck under a table or the nearest piece of furniture. beats me how she does it. backward slither, perhaps? =P

daddyy i'm stuck! =(

7. she's more accustomed to eating now. and in bigger quantities too. my maid feeds her porridge twice a day. she poops twice a day as well, i think. i noticed when i get home from work there will always be a dirty diaper waiting specially for yours truly to change. i think she does that on purpose, haha *shudders at the thought of having to wash a poopified CD*.

mommy stop taking my photo and put on my diaper now please~

8. she wants to play with other things apart from her toys. i suspect she's bored with her collection already *hint hint*. and everything must pass her QC - mouth first.

9. she had her first hair fringe trim! her hair texture is really fine and soft, curled into little ringlets, a trait that make babies seem even cuter. in fact, i think she looks just like her Daddy when he was little. but i hope that it'll eventually straighten out. wouldn't want her to inherit the curliness from the other side of the family. wavy pun dah cukup.

see how funky my hair is! lol

10. recently i tried giving her milk using her MAM bottle. when she was younger she'd accept any bottle. but when i handed her the bottle, she only chewed on the teat and refused to drink. when i transferred the milk into her usual Avent bottle, mau pulak she minum. haiz.

11. she's outgrowing most of her clothes already. now she can fit Carter's 6 months, and is about to outgrow Mothercare 0-3 months (lol). her grandparents have already bought a couple of sleeping outfits for her, 6-12 months size. i'm on a mission to utilize every single outfit that she has before she outgrows them completely.

mommy now that i'm about to outgrow this dress, can i get new ones?

did i miss out anything? when Dayana turns 9 months old i plan to get her some stacking rings and a soft shapes sorter. and some boardbooks too =P.

excuse me. i want to go nuts over stila first.

Dayana at 7 months

today Dayana is 7 months old! the past month has been rather hectic, with Significant Other flying overseas, mil leaving the country for a long holiday and also my first trip overseas since 2 years ago (not to mention suffering from the worse memory loss ever) so i haven't managed to keep track of this month's progress. not to mention this is the month she starts on solids, so here's roughly a list of milestones for this month that i can still remember:

1. she started solids the first day she turned 6 months old, on February 28. started her on baby rice, then apples, peas, bananas, sweet potato, avocado, carrots, and mangoes. a bit akward during the initial phase, but gradually beginning to enjoy mealtime each time she sees her spoon =D. gave her a bit of rusk and managed to 'chomodify' herself with it. lol. milk intake is decreasing, which means milk production is also decreasing =(

the art of food

2. sometimes would make a grab for the spoon - konon she mau feed herself. what she does most of the time is often to stick the spoon far too deep down her throat until she chokes.

feeding herself? =P

3. makes that 'pbbbbbbt' sound with her tongue more often now whenever she feels like it.

4. sometimes all that it takes to get her to nap is for her to grasp an object, for instance your pants (if she's lying next to you), a scrunchie or even her chewy, and that will be just enough for her to fall asleep on her own. although sometimes you might want to jiggle her around abit and sing to her, unless she screams in protest. hehe.

5. is more distracted during feeding time. it's impossible for me to breasfeed for 5 seconds until she breaks away to see where a sound came from, or to look around to see what's going on. so kepochi ini minah. haiz.

6. still no sign of teeth. or no indication of any as of today.

7. turns more frequently now, sometimes even at her own accord. although not an olympic champion yet. is more willing to do so and try to grab nearby objects placed strategically around her.

8. i tried teaching her the 'no more' sign. she stares attentively at my hand while i demonstrate it to her, and secretly tries to do it herself when she thinks no one's watching. my mom tried to teach her to open and close her fingers like you do when you sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. she finds immitating my mom a bit easier, and she does this more often too.

9. is bored of her toys. went to Nedd's house the other day and found those race cars you can buy from Shell petrol stations more fascinating.

10. gets excited whenever Little Einsteins theme song is playing on TV. also recognizes a few other shows on PHDC as well =D. must restrict her TV time when she's older.

watching her favorite show

11. puts everything into her mouth, tak kira lah. she especially loves plastic. i think it's because they make that crinkly noise.

12. she still loves to bounce on her feet each time you hold her up.

13. when she finds someting amusing, she'll laugh. i remember reading to her the other day and each time she tried to touch the Snake's tongue, i'd go 'bzzzzzzz'. she found it hilarious.

14. she loves grabbing on to people's long hair. hehe. her own hair oso dah panjang. i now use a comb to attack the tiny tangles in her hair.

15. acknowledges people she recognize with a sound that sounds similar to 'hye' =P

16. is more tolerable to strangers. tapi ikut her mood.

17. already retired all of her tiny baby clothes. Nedd found it amusing that Dayana is still able to fit 0-3 months outfits even at 7 months. lol.

18. her poop is more smellier! *pengsan tidak ketawa*

19. when we brought her to the Doctor for her sixth-month jab, Dayana took one look at the Doctor and burst out crying - she can already associate painful jabs with the Doctor's face? haha. she's 6kg now at 7 months old, and increase of 500g from the previous month. yay!

well, that's a long list. bits and pieces of what i can remember. i hope i'll be able to record her progress more accurately for her 7th month =)

toodles!