Gabby's school organised a Mother's Day celebration on Friday and invited all the mommies for moving. Even though the infant class had little participation, I still wanted to join in, I wanted to spend time with my precious little baby, and I wanted her to experience the celebration... so we went and we had fun!

The older kids performed an item for the mommies present. There were booths set up around the school for various activities. Gabby walked into a classroom and played with her "ex-classmates"... I wonder if she really remembers them... haha

A big "I love you Mommy" poster... Nice job teachers!!

Gabby's teachers traced her hand on paper, cut them out and made them into flowers for the mommies. Gabby handed it to me when we went into the infant class after the celebration. *melt....

I'm a happy Mommy!

Happy Mommy's Day!

It was just yesterday that I wondered if I'd get a chance to see you take your first unassisted step... And then you did just that when we were at Nai Nai's place just now. You were playing with Gor Gor's toys and Mommy was right behind you. You stood up and thinking that Mommy's holding on to your waist, you took a step... and another step... and as if you knew that Mommy wasn't exactly holding you, you sat down again. When I saw you take those 2 steps, tears almost welled up in my eyes. My baby is growing up so fast!

BTW, Mommy loves carrying you. I know that once you've learnt how to walk and run, you'd probably prefer that to being wrapped in Mommy's arms. But please remember to let Mommy carry you every now and then ok? You will never be too heavy for Mommy.

Our little girl started to walk, or more like inch along the sofa since 3 months ago and lately she has gone into the advanced stage of learning how to walk. She has been able to stand up on her own steadily for quite a while already too. However, she hasn't seemed to find the courage to take her first step without assistance.

She walks excitedly while holding our hands.

She pushes her walker around the house happily.

In fact, she's amazingly good at maneuvering the walker. She knows how to pull the walker towards herself a little and then turn it a little to change the direction. Damn cute! (I wanted to post a video to show her doing that, but don't know how come can't post videos... why huh?)

The teachers are saying that she's actually quite steady already, but just lack the courage to take her first step. Will I get the chance to see her take that first virgin unassisted step? She did a lot of firsts in school, without me nor Calvin witnessing them. Gabby, take your first step with Mommy and Daddy ok? Wait for us to be around ok?

Most of the time we don't get to pick you up from school. Most of the time when we get home, you're already sleeping.

When we do get to pick you up from school, you always make our hearts melt. When you hear our voices, your eyes light up and you start to flap your hands happily. And like getting to us in the shortest possible time is the only thing on your mind, you crawled like a champion towards us.

When we do get home early enough to catch you before your bedtime, you drop everything that you were doing (except when you were having your dinner...haha) and sprint towards us, hug our legs, grab our clothes and prepare to climb up into our embrace. You throw your arms around our necks and rest your head on our shoulders. You enjoy that precious moment as much as we do.

Gabby, this is all that matters at the end of every day.

Gabby fell ill for the 2nd time in 2 weeks! We decided to start Gabby on formula milk a month ago (26 Oct to be exact). I figured I need to get her used to the taste soon before I slow down my milk supply. Started her off with NAN HA, I'm a Nestle believer.. because they're my clients! hahaha.. but seriously, I believe they have quality products because a lot of research have gone into product development.

Anyhow, Gabby refused to take FM initially. The teachers in school had to trick her, coax her, etc. In the end, they had to slowly introduce FM to my daughter... 10ml by 10ml increase by the day. But she really doesn't like FM. One fine day at home, I decided to taste NAN HA myself... and I HATE IT! It tastes really bitter! No wonder my food lover daughter doesn't like it.

So, we decided to give Similac a try. We heard that it is sweeter... She seemed to take it better than NAN HA. So maybe it's really the taste of the milk powder.

After introducing Similac for a few days, my darling girl developed fever. And then a week later, she started coughing and sneezing and developed fever again! I began to think if there's any truth when people say that Similac is more "heaty" than other brands.

Now, I don't what to do to get her to drink FM, or any other fluid like water. God, help me...

Gabby coughing....:(

Gabby's not well, but still cheeky! haha

That's what my precious daughter gave me this afternoon! She woke up from her afternoon nap and I just happened to feel like peeing at that moment. I chatted with her for a while on the bed, carried her around a bit and then put her in her "poo-poo" chair, buckled her up while I went ahead to do my business. She was good, no noise while I was at it. So I decided to wash some dishes... but within seconds, I heard her fussing and I heard her pacifier drop. I was still contemplating if I should just leave her to fuss for a while. Thank God I decided not to.

I walked out to the living room and this is what I saw!!!

My 9.5 month old girl got out of her rocker and stood by the sofa next to it! I buckled her before I left her! I don't know how she did it! She didn't fall, she didn't knock onto anything... she just stood there, fussing and waiting for me to appear!

I ran over and carried her and hugged her! Thank God she wasn't hurt. I really have no idea how she managed to do this. Gosh... there's no where else I can leave her if I have to have her out of my sight!

I knocked off at 6.30pm today and went straight home with dinner for my parents. When I got to the door, I heard my dad telling Gabby that Mommy's home. Then I was greeted by Gabby in my dad's arms... When she saw Mommy, she screamed with joy. As I walked towards them, my baby lunged herself forward towards me, screaming for me to carry her. She literally lunged forward precariously, as if nothing else matters other than getting into my arms! And when I carried her, she rested her head on my shoulders with her hands grabbing tightly to my shirt. No way is she letting go of her Mommy... and of course, the Mommy felt GOOD!! (^__^)

Gabby, Mommy loves you so much! More than you can imagine...

I finally got down to doing it. I made and froze 2 different puree and they should last at least 2 weeks. Hope she likes them!

Calvin set off for his 9-day HK trip this morning. This is his first time away from Gabby for so long. When I went KL for 3 days, I came back to a daughter who sticks to her Daddy all the time. Calvin was worried that Gabby may not want him after these 9 days... Well I really don't think that's gonna happen. Gabby loves her Daddy too much!

Gabby and I are counting down to the day that her Daddy comes home. We miss you!!!

We were worried that the taste of avocado may be too strong for our baby's liking. But we've been unduly worried. Calvin puree'd half an avocado for Gabby yesterday while I expressed. And we added some fresh breastmilk into the avocado puree for her.

She took her first mouthful and concentrated on tasting it. Within seconds, she smiled and opened her mouth wide for the next mouthful. She's enjoying it!

Today, I puree'd the whole fruit for her and she really enjoyed every mouthful of it. She almost finished everything! I tried it myself and eerrm... don't think I can enjoy it the way she does.

The fever, rash and teething discomfort disrupted her love for food the last few days. Now, I'm just glad that she's gotten back her appetite.

The teachers in school are suggesting we start giving Gabby a proper dinner meal. Her current feeding routine is such:

~7am: approx. 100ml of BM at home
~11pm: 180ml of BM or however much she can drink in her half asleep mode

Fetching Gabby from school at the end of the day is the most joyous thing to do. My mom has been raving about how happy Gabby is when she sees Po Po walk into the room every evening. So since both Calvin and I aren't working today, we get to experience that for ourselves.

We hid behind the door to peep at her, to see what she's doing. Can you spot her?

She seemed to have noticed that someone has walked into the room...

And she realised it's her Daddy and Mommy!
This is what makes everything worthwhile after a shitty day at work!

She started her sprint towards us.

Go go Gabby!

She's determined to get to us as fast as she can. And she's really crawling like a champion now, even though she hasn't learnt how to crawl on her knees.

Yes! Right into Daddy's arms!

Collecting her reward for the race... a kiss from Daddy!

Mommy is in KL for a client workshop... alone in the hotel room missing you and Daddy terribly. Can't wait to be home with you again... hug you, kiss you, carry you, feed you, play with you.. just spending quality time with you and Daddy, just the 3 of us.

Mommy loves you and Daddy will be kissing you extra everyday on my behalf.

Be good, be blessed and I love you.

And I love you too, Gabby's Daddy!

It already sounded yucky, doesn't it? I love broccoli, but in puree form?? hmmm... But Gabby can only take puree.

I tried doing it with my usual fruit juice blender. FAILED. Went to get a hand held blender and it's a blast. Easy and fast. With this, I can make a lot more puree variety for Gabby. Yeah! It's quite fun.

I tasted the puree and indeed it's yucky. But when I fed Gabby with it, she loved it! She was screaming for more!!! Well done girl!

I actually forgot to pen down the date those little bottom teeth broke through Gabby's gums! That was about a couple of weeks back. Last weekend, Gabby got back into the refusing milk phase, just like what happened when the bottom teeth were coming out. I think her top 2 are coming out soon...

I was grocery shopping after my haircut last Friday while waiting for Calvin to come pick me up. Found this Teething Rusks on the shelves and I decided to see if it'd help soothe Gabby's discomfort. Even if it doesn't, at least she's biting something edible! She's at this stage where anything that gets into her hands, gets into her mouth too... Everything!

I finally gave Gabby a stick today. I put her into the Bumbo and put on the table top. It's the first time I put the table top on and Gabby seems to know! She never had the table top on whenever we feed her cereal. She's in eager anticipation for something exciting.

When I first handed her the rusk, she didn't know what it was. She seems to be thinking, is this a toy or is this food?? She kept waving it in the air initially. But then, it didn't take long for her to bring it to her mouth.

Hmmmm... what is this thing? No taste one...

She seemed to have decided that it's a toy... haha... She was playing with it, biting both ends and waving it in the air.

I read an article that says if we eat together with our baby and show interest in food with her, she will learn to enjoy mealtimes. As I wanted to know what the rusks taste like, I decided to "eat" it with Gabby. I took a stick out for myself and showed her that I was eating it with her. She got so excited and so happy! It's the first time we "ate" together and she was extremely happy to have Mommy eat with her! I was very pleasantly surprised by her reaction. I didn't know it really could make such a big difference to my precious baby that I'm eating with her!

We placed an order for a high chair and it'd be delivered in 2 weeks. When it arrives, Gabby is gonna have her meals with us! Can't wait for that to happen.

It's been 3 weeks since Gabby started on brown rice cereals. So I decided to introduce some vegetables to her this weekend since it's a long weekend... I have 3 days to get her used to a new taste.

I was deciding between giving her vegetables 1st or fruits 1st. I read on some websites that if you want to develop her liking for vegetables, start with that first. Then I had to decide what vegetables first... I think I think too much.. haha. In the end, I decided butternut squash would be it. Nice name too... haha.. well it's just a type of pumpkin.

So I went to Raffles City during lunchtime yesterday and bought half a butternut squash. Can't believe I was so excited about making vege puree for Gabby for the first time!

Bought this munchkin food grinder sometime back. Now it's put to good use. It's very easy and convenient to use. Just put the steamed squash into the chamber and grind... you get a nice textured puree thereafter. I tried it and it's YUMS!

Well, but what I think is yummy is not what my daughter thinks is yummy. Gabby took the first little teaspoon of the squash puree and immediately showed signs of skeptism. She was gagging as if she's gonna throw up... but right after she swallowed it, she opened her mouth and wanted to take another mouthful of it... hahahaha it was so funny. So I gave her another few teaspoons of it, and she reacted the same way every time. hahaha... let's see how it goes tomorrow.

Gabby is reaching her big 6-month mark and we decided it's time to introduce her to semi-solids! It's an exciting time for us! We surfed and asked around on what brand to buy, what type to try.
Finally, we (or rather I) decided that we'll go with Healthy Times Brown Rice Cereals.

One of the teachers in school, Teacher Alice, suggested that instead of letting the teachers in school start her on cereals, we have to be the first ones to introduce her to semi-solids. She said that it's a priceless moment watching your baby take her first bite. It's one big milestone that we as parents have to experience. It has never crossed our mind that this is so important! Thank you Teacher Alice for sharing this with us. I would have regretted it if I allowed myself to miss this big milestone.

So on Sat, the big day, we had everything (or so we thought) ready... Bumbo, bibs, bowl, spoon... camera, video... Gabby seemed to be as excited as we were! She sat in the Bumbo as if waiting for something special to happen. Well, baby... it is really something special. Mommy's first at feeding and your first at eating!

It wasn't as simple as I thought. Feeding someone so small, someone who doesn't know how to respond to the spoon coming at her. Gabby didn't really know how to open her mouth and take in the food. I can imagine from her point of view... haha.. It is really quite an experience. Obviously, the scene was a little messy in the end. And we had to run to get a wet hanky to wipe her cereal-smeared face and had to get wet tissue to wipe the floor.

All in all, this was FUN! hahaha... Gabby, hope this was as fun for you as it was for me!

Curious Gabby staring at the spoon as Daddy was scooping the cereal from the bowl.