Picky picky

Bring on my meal-time entertainment!

(Sigh) Meal-times with Jo Ern is getting challenging. She has always disliked fish, fine. Then she decided to dislike millet too. And then banana. And bread. And last week she rejected practically all her tried-and-tested food. She would stick out her tongue to push food out. Luckily she likes cheese and one trick is to sneak spoonfuls of food into her while giving her her Edam cubes. The maid is also pretty patient and brings her toys to play, puts her on her car etc to distract her.

I have been busy trying out new food to make her eat. 

1. Red bean soup – I agonised over whether the sugar would be bad and decided it should be fine. Soaked the beans overnight, cooked them, added sago, let the whole thing cool and then pureed some for her. Gave her a spoonful and received her answer within one second…. BLEKK tongue out, food out. FAIL

2.  Made her cheese pancakes.  BLEKK tongue out.  FAIL.

3. Added Marmite to her porridge. Shake head, tongue out.  FAIL.

4. Added ikan bilis. Tongue out.  FAIL

5. Pureed her food (she’d been fine with coarser textures for a while). Limited success… she still shakes her head and waves her hands to block the spoon, but at least she doesn’t go BLEKK once the food is in her mouth.

6. Fed her all kinds of food. Butter cake, durian, bread with jam, BLEKK. Ice-cream and biscuits OK.

I sure hope this is only a phase.  Paed measured her at the bottom 10% weight percentile (dropped since the last visit) during her MMR vaccination so I'm anxious that she doesn't drop even more. 

Self entertainment

Throwing water everywhere and all over myself is really fun!

All things with a lot of buttons to press MUST be played with by me

Woo hoo! Climbed up here all by myself!

I have just ordered a few toys online. In the meantime Jo Ern is quite happily entertaining herself. My house is so NOT baby-friendly. We have multiple staircases, lots of glass objects, exposed electrical equipment, a cream-coloured sofa, a big German Shepherd outside... heh. Of course, Jo Ern has no problem with any of these!

First car

I have a car!  Got this for my birthday

Oops just now was sitting backwards.  Heh.  Now sit properly already.

I scratch my head sometimes how to occupy Jo Ern.  After subtracting slots for sleeping, eating, bathing, carrying her around etc, there're still quite some hours for playing.  I let her roam around and climb the stairs under supervision.  Eventually I find myself heading for the same toys and wonder if it's boring to a small child.  Luckily she got new toys for her birthday.  Maybe I should buy a few more.  What she definitely likes are to mess around with things like the dustbin, the broom, the drain cover, the insect spray... haha.  Dunno why the little one is especially attracted to things she SHOULDN'T be playing with!

Little inspector

Ho, this one is reaching expiry date 

Must check inside the big packets also

Sometimes, I just need to keep Jo Ern occupied so that I can get things done.  I figured the Maggi Mee cupboard was a relatively safe play-place.  :)  Diligently, packet by packet, she took them out and put them on the floor.  The 'assam laksa'-flavoured ones were still in their outer packaging.  So she got to work on them, took out each packet and put it on the floor.  Hmm looks like this little one can be quite meticulous!  Next I must teach her how to put things BACK.  Hehe.

Four already

My new teeth are at the top. Now I can BITE... arhmm!

Four TEETH already, I mean.  But the new top teeth are much bigger than the two bottom ones.  And there's quite a large gap in between.  Hope this doesn't mean orthodontic braces in the future!

Goodbye to Tai-ma

 So many people here. Tai-ma must have had a lot of friends

Yesterday was the funeral of my grandmother, or Jo Ern's Tai-ma (great-grandmother) in Taiping.  There goes the last of my grandparents.  I find her passing a sobering reminder that death is inevitable.  But she lived till 96, a good long life.  She was reasonably healthy until almost the very end and I'm glad she didn't suffer long then.

We were exempted from many of the rituals since we had a baby with us.  Jo Ern behaved very well though and actually sat through one of the prayer sessions. Well ok, I was prepared with a celery stick for her and she just sat there without a peep chewing on it!  No pictures since whipping out a camera didn't seem appropriate.

It's time for my lunch but this bread will do since Mummy is busy

For the wake that night, attendees were served peanuts, red bean soup, barley-gingko and vegetarian curry mee.  Hmm rather sumptuous food, no?  But an uncle told me this is quite common these days.  I guess people needed more sustenance since prayers went on till midnight.  Goodbye and RIP, grandmother.

Nobody brought my bath-tub... lucky got this pail to pom-pom in

Gentle, but not all the time

I climb up the stairs, wheee

Jo Ern has been branded the 'good' kid, which is mainly in comparison with her 2-weeks-older cousin Jensen.  At her birthday celebration recently, my aunt said she was really 'gentle' and feminine.  Well that's coz Jensen was screeching away at the time while Jo Ern was going 'ai yaaa' softly.  But I find she can be quite a handful too.  Especially now when she can move, stand and climb.  And she will cry loudly when prevented from doing what she wants. 

Don't wanna SIT in this chair... wanna STAND!

Don't wanna SIT, don't WAAAANT!!

Of course, she got her way eventually... as usual.  Err when should discipline for babies start??