Mum-mum, Nen-nen!

Hannah's two favourite words nowadays are mum-mum and nen-nen! She was actually able to say these words much earlier when she was about 4 months plus but now she can say them clearly and distinctly, especially when she wants her food or milk! It's pretty funny sometimes, because she says it non-stop until she gets what she wants! Or if she's very hungry, she will say it in a complaining voice, and I mean very complaining voice!

She babbles away quite happily to herself most of the time now, and even the doctor said at her recent appointment that she really wants to talk! These past few days, she can pronounce the words "pa-pak" so it makes her Daddy very happy! :) I wonder when she can say Ma-ma or Ma-mi :)

She can also at the moment recognise certain words; for example "flower" (referring to a vase of flowers in our house), "Christmas tree" and especially "Xiao Hei"! "Xiao Hei" is her Ah Mah's dog. Whenever we say any of these words, she will immediately turn and look at the particular object.

Anyway, here are more pictures taken over the weekend which I did not post up earlier.


Getting ready to go out - all excited!


Hmm..why are we taking pictures indoors and not going out??


Road-trip! With Baby Pooh of course :)

Weekend photo collage

Hi everyone, I am almost recovered from my runny nose, but it still gets stuffy at times. I am able to sleep and drink my milk as usual, however, so it's all good :)

This weekend Mummy and Daddy took lots of photos, so we are compiling it all here in what I like to call our "weekend photo collage" :)

This was me on Saturday, playing with my toys as usual. Mummy tied up my hair like how Ah Mah does, but Daddy doesn't like it. This is what causes my "canggih" hairstyle when I wake up in the morning.

Daddy took these close-up photos of me (can you see my runny nose?). He prefers my look like this.

I really like to go kai-kai. So sometimes when we don't go out on the weekends, Daddy will bring me downstairs to our apartment playground and swimming pool. This morning, Mummy and Daddy took me so we could get some nice photos. I had a good time on the swings. Then Mummy brought me closer to the swimming pool to have a look. I like to see the bubbles coming up from the jacuzzi in the pool.

Later, we also went to Youth Park. Compare these pictures taken with Mummy and Daddy to those below when I was just 3 months old. Have I changed since then? You can read about my first visit to Youth Park here.

I was much smaller then...and my hair was much shorter too!

Here are more photos Daddy took of me, me and more me! :)

Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature BPA-free bottles

I have been intending to change Hannah's milk bottles for a while now since she already 6 months plus, but did not get round to doing it until last week. Currently she is using the Avent regular plastic bottles. I was not one who was afraid of BPA and all that but since I was going to change the bottles, I did some research on the BPA-free bottles available on the market.

What is BPA? The plastic used to make baby bottles contains a chemical called Bisphenol A (BPA). Very tiny amounts of BPA can leach from a plastic bottle into your baby's milk. This is a concern because BPA has been linked to possible health problems such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and changes to our hormone systems. Below is a chemical diagram of BPA:



Although it is said that large quantities of BPA is needed to to be consumed to be actually harmful, I suppose it's better not to take the risk. So looks like I am as kiasu as anyone else. Haha. Of course the safest alternative to avoid chemicals is to use glass bottles, but that option is totally impractical.

There are many brands which now manufacture BPA-free bottles, among them The First Years, Safety Plus, Evenflo, Tommee Tippee, Think Baby, Nuby, as well as Avent.

From my research, I found out that there are two different materials used to make BPA-free bottles, polypropylene (PP) and polyethersulfone (PES). PP bottles are not clear, but opaque looking whilst PES bottles have a natural honey colour tint. PES bottles are also more expensive than PP bottles.

So anyway, after much browsing, I came across this:



This bottle is made of PP and BPA-free. I liked the shape of the bottle and that it came in 2-bottle packaging. So I bought it online from myBBstore at a very good price, RM30.90 for the 5 oz bottles (2-pack) and RM31.90 for the 9 oz bottles (also 2-pack). Their service is also very good. I ordered and paid for the items on Friday evening; Saturday they already shipped the items and I received them on Monday morning. Fast right? Tommee Tippee is an award-winning brand from the UK and their bottles are also made in England. Click on the title above to link to their website. Since Avent BPA-free bottles are so expensive (they are made from PES), I thought it would be worthwhile to give this a try.

I also bought these by Tommee Tippee because it's high time Hannah changed her old pacifiers. She has had one of them since she was about one month old! They look cute, don't they? And the handle glows in the dark so I thought that was pretty useful since currently I have to grope in the dark for her pacifier when she wakes up and wants it.



How does Hannah like her new Tommee Tippee range products? She has taken to the bottles really well. I was afraid that she might not, but she has no problem with them. In fact, these bottles seems to be easier for her to hold on her own as well. She can finish all her milk holding the bottle (9 oz) on her own whereas with the Avent bottle she will drop it halfway into drinking her milk. Maybe the Tommee Tippee bottles are lighter? She also drinks more water from these bottles compared to the Avent ones, which is good.

However, she does not like the pacifiers at all. Maybe because the teat of it is bigger than her current Avent pacifiers, even though they are both of the orthodontic shape. Oh well, I suppose it's not as easy getting her to give up her old pacifiers. Probably because they already have the "smell" that she is familiar with.

Oh well, if she likes these bottles, then we will probably use them from now on. Can save $$$ too! :) Does anyone know where I can buy them in Penang? I have not seen them sold in the usual departmental stores (Parkson, Jusco) and I would need to replace the teats from time to time. It would be easier to buy them at the regular stores than online because it would not be worthwhile to pay shipping costs for such a small item. As for the pacifiers, we'll just have to slowly coax her to give up the old ones and use the new ones. Otherwise I'll just have to go out and get new Avent pacifiers for her. Sigh...babies can be so demanding!

Ah-choo!

I am not feeling well. I got a stuffy and runny nose yesterday and today it is still not better. I must have got it from Daddy because he was having a runny nose a few days ago. So anyway, this is the first time I have been sick on my own, meaning that it wasn't caused by my injections.

I find it difficult to breathe because my nose is blocked so I have to breathe through my mouth. Mummy says I am so kesian because I am small and I don't know how to blow my nose. Mummy and Daddy also don't know what to do to help me. If tomorrow I am not better, we have to go and see the doctor.

Since I couldn't sleep earlier, see what I was doing. Daddy had to go out for a while so Mummy put me in my play area. I was playing with my toys when it should have been my bedtime! But I was quite fussy and cranky because of my runny nose.

Not long after that I started to cry and complain so Mummy carried me from the playroom to the bedroom to the living room. Then again from the playroom to the bedroom to the living room. After a few rounds of that, I finally fell asleep on Mummy's shoulder and she then put me down on the bed. She put me in a slanting position so all the yucky stuff in my nose won't flow back and choke me.

Look at the yucky stuff coming out from my nose. I absolutely hate people wiping my face so Mummy found it quite a challenge to wipe my nose. So this is what she did. First she wet one of my face towels so that it wouldn't hurt me with the constant wiping. Then she used the wet towel and played a peekaboo game with me, which I love! Then she could use the towel and wipe my face and I wouldn't complain.

Oh well, I hope I get better soon, Mummy and Daddy!

Morning surprise!

Mummy and Daddy gave me a nice surprise when I woke up this morning. Look at what I saw in the living room.. it's a beautiful Christmas tree! :) Of course, I was very excited to see the many colours and blinking lights!

Last night Jie Jie Zhen Yi and Jie Jie Candice helped Daddy to put up the tree but I was already asleep so I couldn't help them. However, Mummy and Daddy saved one thing for me to hang up on the tree; it was the star at the very top. So that was my special treat! :)

Mummy thinks that the tree is a little bit too decorated for a small tree but Daddy says, "Nice what!" Anyway, I still like it :) I posed in front of it for a picture.

Of course, my hands couldn't stay still for long! I reached out to grab the colourful balls and even pulled a few off! :) Mummy says "Aiyo..so chor lor" :p

Even when Mummy carried me I still wanted to grab the ornaments.

Finally Mummy said no more. I shouldn't go near the tree in case I pull too hard on the ornaments and the whole tree topples on me!

Oh well, I guess I have to admire it from afar. By the way, there are no presents underneath the tree yet. Mummy and Daddy, put some presents under the tree for me, ok? ;)

Ouch!

I am now getting in the habit of waking up very early every day. Probably this is because I sleep so early! This morning I woke up at 6 a.m. and of course, Mummy and Daddy had to wake up too :p.

Let me tell you what happened to me this morning. I was wriggling around and couldn't sit still for even a little while so I accidentally knocked my face against the sofa armrest. It's made of wood so it was quite a hard knock for a baby like me! I wailed loudly for about 5 seconds and then it was over. Now that I can turn and move around a lot, Mummy and Daddy cannot leave me alone or turn away for even just one second! The night before last I actually fell off the bed. I rolled too near the edge and fell right off. Good thing Daddy put pillows on the ground in case that were to happen. The best thing, is, I did not even wake up or cry! Daddy got up to use the bathroom and when he came back, I had disappeared! I gave Daddy such a shock.

Anyway, see here is where I knocked myself this morning. Can you see the red mark below my right eye? Mummy put some ice on it so that it wouldn't swell too much. By the way, that is Daddy lying down behind me :p

My face is turned so you can get a better look. Aiyo..not pretty already like that :(

But I was still my cheerful self! Nothing can keep me miserable for long! :)

Baby routine

I've just realised that all this while I have never blogged about our usual routine ever since Hannah arrived. Needless to say, our once happy-go-lucky and carefree lifestyle changed drastically! (Not that I'm complaining :p)

So our usual routine goes pretty much like this. We wake up about 7 a.m. everyday (even on weekends!) because Hannah wakes us up. She actually wakes up earlier, sometimes even 6.30 a.m. and rolls around on the bed, talking to herself until she gets bored or hungry and calls to us to wake up. Natural alarm clock :)

So up we get and it's time to get ready for work. I do have to say here that I have a wonderful hubby who gets up for night feeds and lets me sleep. Thanks B! :) Hannah still gets up usually once a night for milk but goes to sleep immediately after. On rare ocassions she sleeps through the night.

We leave the house around 7.45 a.m. and drops her at her Ah Mah's house. We don't need to bring anything because she will have her bath and change there. We then go to have breakfast and then to work. My new job starting time is 8.45 a.m. which means I am usually late! :) However, they are quite flexible with lawyers so it's a good thing for me.

After work, around 6 plus, we go back to fetch Hannah from her Ah Mah's house and usually have dinner there with delicious home-cooked food :)

Most of the time, she will sleep in the car coming home which is around 7 something and straight away sleep when we get back. So usually we find it hard to go anywhere at night unless Hubby's sister who lives next door can fetch her home.

Just 2 days ago, she had her 6 month injections, and as expected, came down with on and off fever. This morning, we were told by her Ah Mah that she also vomited. Hopefully she will be back to her usual self again tomorrow.

So that's basically our usual routine on weekdays.

How about weekends? As usual, she wakes up very early so we are forced to wake up. However she will go back to sleep again at about 9 something to 10 for her morning nap. This gives me time to get some house chores done, especially on Saturday morning when I'm alone with her. She then wakes up after about an hour and has her bath, milk and playtime. Later about 1 or 2 p.m. she will have her afternoon nap for about another hour or so. And then she does not sleep again until evening into the night.

So that's about our life now with Baby Hannah. It's difficult at times, but we don't regret any part of it :)


My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Hannah random photos

There are a few photos of Baby Hannah which I like very much but did not manage to post up here yet. So I have decided to collect them into this post entitled "Hannah random photos" because that's what they are: random photos! :)


Huh? You are calling me, Mummy?

Grumpy face having just woken up from sleep:



I like her look here: note the raised eyebrows ;)



Another Hannah and Daddy lookalike hairstyle photo:



Just woken up from afternoon nap:



After bath: complaining face!



Time for bed!