8 month Old

Daniel turned 8 month old last Sunday. I hadn't got time recording his progress then as we were travelling down south visiting my friend and Daniel's grandparents.

Daniel isn't an early developer, in my opinion. He seems slow on the physical side of development (maybe just me being neurotic). He is still quite struggling on crawling., I put this down to his wide body frame, his muscles strength are not quite up to the capability of dragging his heavy body forward yet. But yesterday when we were in pool, a mum of a 9 month baby girl told me her daughter is not crawling yet either. Daniel seems quite keen on standing up though, each time I pick him up with both my hands holding underneath his arms, he would try standing on his two feet for one or two minutes at a time. When he was in the bath, he always try to pull himself up to reach 2 little plastic ducks I put aside on the edge of the bath tub, I don't know if this count but he can lift his bottom off the ground for quite while, I know this might be due to the buoyancy ... he is definitely rolling over better than he used to do. Nowadays to get himself into naps in bed, He would be rolling over on bed banging his legs for at least 20 minutes before he finally got tired for sleep. At nights, couple of times i found that he rolled on his tummy with grobag on him ( normally he just toss and turn) and woke himself up this way...

Daniel is quite coordinated now, he can hold bottle/beaker to feed himself providing he is in good mood, he even know how to tilt the bottle to get the last drop of milk. When he is in bed, he can pick up the dropped dummy and pop it back on, the funny thing is that he will throw or blow dummy away if the dummy cannot get him into sleep. I sometimes just leave the dummy in his hand and let himself to decide if he need it, he would hold the dummy tight (or play it to start with) and find the right side to put in his mouth when he want to sleep...

Daniel is very good at understand physical humour at this stage. For example, Terry's hiccup would set him off laughing loudly; My sit-up exercises in front of him would make him laugh; certain words, used to be 'lights', ' now 'corn flakes' and 'tap' would make him laugh. Obviously, peek-a-boo would make him laugh loudly as well, every so often I would put a soft toy in font of my face, say 'where is mummy?' then move away the toy suddenly and say 'mummy is here', this trick will set him off laughing loudly. They said nothing sweeter than a baby's laugh, I truely believe it now.. .

Story like Mr Croc would make him laugh, I always tell story of Mr Croc from one of the pop-up book to Daniel while I am cooking and he is sitting there watching me, I would say 'Mr Croc, are you ready or not?', 'no, I'm just putting on my blue jeans.'....'Mr Croc, are you ready or not?' 'No, I'm just putting on my yellow jumper'... 'Mr Croc, are you ready or not?' 'No,I'm just putting on my read coat'... 'Mr croc, are you ready or not?' 'Yes, I'm just coming to get you!!' The last sentence I would raised the pitch of my voice, whcih will make him laugh.

His teeth are not coming through yet.

'Big wave in the pool'

I took Daniel swimming this morning again. Originally i want to take him for baby swimming lessons which starts at 10am. But Daniel failed to fall asleep in the pushchair in our usual morning walk in the park. So I decided to change plan for only leisure swimming in the toddler pool as i knew Daniel would be unsettle during the lesson. We arrived leisure center at 10am, Daniel was a lot better in the changing room this time than last week. It's not much hassle for me to get both of us changed and heading for pool. As predicted, Daniel was fretful in the pool to start with, after a while he started to enjoy a bit. I took him to slightly deep bit of pool letting him holding the edge of the pool just like when we adults start to learn swimming. He did this exercises for 5 minutes. Then along came the 'giant' wave, apparently the leisure pool was simulating beach waves every 30 minutes, i quickly moved Daniel to the 'beach', but we were still hit by the big wave and out of fear Daniel cried in tears, other babes were doing the same, it looked only toddlers enjoy it.

After swimming, Daniel dozed off straight away even before we backed to the car and he had really good nap after lunch. Swimming is really good exercise for babes, I think. I plan to make it as our Thursday routine in the future and we will go swimming this weekend with Terry as well.

Daniel met Daniel

One of the reason we went on this mini break was to catch up a friend and her family. Nancy had a son called Daniel as well, who is just 20days old than my Daniel.

Nancy and I arrived Portsmouth uni at the same year 1999 and knew each other since then. After I finished my MBA I moved to live in Southampton with Terry and later moved to Yorkshire for my job. Nancy stayed on in the uni for another 3 more years for a PHD then got a job with NHS in Southampton after the PHD and later married an English last year. Last time we saw each other was on her last year's New Year Eve party. Remembered we talked about that we both longed for a child (Nancy is 3 years old than me, probably biological clock ticked even louder) on that party... here we are, Daniel met Daniel.

Mini Break

We had a mini break over the weekend. Terry finished work early Friday and we drove down Southampton in torrential rain. We have to cancelled Indian restaurant in Southampton as we was still stuck in the traffic near Oxford at 6. We arrived Southampton about 8pm and checked in Marwell Zoo Hotel. We didn't expect the hotel will be that good, but it turned out to be a really good one for the price we paid. For £59 we would just hope something like Travel lodge. The hotel has a swimming pool ans situated in the woods outside the zoo. It is a beautiful wooden structure in African jungle style. We had a twin room with two double-bed with very comfy lining. I had a very good night sleep with Daniel next to me. Following morning was very sunny, when we took Daniel through the hotel corridor to hotel restaurant for breakfast, he was very excited to see all the trees and green through the huge glass wall on each side of the corridor. After breakfast we took Daniel swimming in the pool again. He enjoyed half hour swimming session in the pool. Terry even tried to dip him completely into water to test if his diving reflex was still working ( it said baby would lost this reflex after one year old ,that's why some of the baby swimming class only take baby under 1-year old), Daniel cried a little bit but he seemed OK with it. When Terry held Daniel, I did couple length of swimming since Daniel was born, which was very relaxing. (My fitness is definitely need to recover, I used to do 20 length no-stop for my Wednesday lane-swimming session for years pre-pregnancy)...I found that swimming helps Daniel sleep. He dozed off for an hour in hotel bed afterwards...

Splash, splash...

Daniel had his first baby swimming session today.

He woke up early again in the morning around 6am , so I fed him breakfast at 7am and pushed him to the local park for his morning nap at 8am. It's a very sunny day and the park was quiet at this sort of time with only Daniel and me, I pushed him along the path round and round couple of times before he finally settle to his nap, then I sat on the bench reading the Gina's Baby Sleep Guide. Daniel managed to get 1 hour nap, I think it would be enough to get him through the swimming session without being fretful, we backed home around 9.30am and I spent half hour getting swimming bag ready (his stuff and my stuff), I bought Daniel his first wet suit, swimming pants long time ago, somehow waited until today to get used...

Daniel was really scared and anxious when we were in the family changing room and he screamed then i had to hold him to put things in the locker and carried car seat into the pool. The swimming pool were very busy this morning, lots of babes and toddlers. Daniel was very nervous at the beginning, after I dipped him into the toddler pool and put him on top of a jacuzzi, he started to relax a bit and enjoy the water massage on his bottom. Seeing him relaxed a bit I moved to slightly deep water and put him on his tummy, he instinctively started to kick his legs... he was quite good on breaststroke but not on backstroke, once I put him in water on his back he would start to cry, also he would cry when water got in his mouth and ear. Daniel started walking like a little man in the water with the aid of floatation from water. The pool was quite noisy and toddlers kept splashing water all over us but Daniel seemed OK with that.Couple of mothers watched him saying he does well considering this is his first time... After being in water for half hour I thought Daniel would be getting cold ( I didn't bother his wet suit in the end , the pool temperature was 31 C), so I got him out of water wrapped him up in his baby towel, getting out the camera wanting to take Daniel's first swimming pictures but I was stopped by the lifeguard-on-duty saying camera was not allowed in this premise. Never mind! Daniel seemed still want to be in water so we played another 10 minutes more... 40 minutes I said 'it's enough! ', Wrapped him up we backed to shore, I fed him half pot of yogurt at pool side as his last course for today's swimming session.

Books

Thinking that I could ditch Borders or Waterstone ( 2 my favorite bookshops) or Amazon.

Yesterday I bought 5 brand new books from discount bookshop the Works costing only £10, Every book there sells at £2 , So I bought a BBC lifestyle book How to look Good , which is a real bargain for me as last year I bought the similar sort of book What not to wear by Trinny and Susanna for £12 from Amazon; Also bought a glossy recipes book and 3 baby's pop-up board books, which would cost about £6 each at Borders.

Today I went to library to check that Gina Ford's book The Complete Sleep Guide for Contended Babies and Toddlers, I didn't expected to get it today as it's sort of popular parenting book. To my surprise, it was there on the shelf in parenting books section and the even more surprising thing is it's brand new as well, the borrowing record sheet suggests that nobody has borrowed it yet. Last month when I wanted to read Steve Biddulph's newly-published book Raising babes -Should babes under 3 go to nursery? I had nearly ordered it from Amazon then changed mind to check its availability in library first, and it was there. Obviously the library service has been improved.

Beep, beep, Daniel is here

Life with a bay at home is like this 'I've worked all day but done nothing', everyday all I remember is just feeding Daniel, Changing nappy and making him sleep... It takes so much energy and seems thankless, but I love it and wouldn't moan about it, I know mothering is about being available to your baby. These days our weekends are spent on trip to Toy R Us and Mothercare, we bought a 5-in-1 trekker for Daniel on weekend.

It took Terry nearly an hour to assemble it. The trekker can turn into a rocker, a stroller with parent handle and a rider when baby older. Now we installed it as a stroller. Daniel was so excited siting in the it that he kicked his legs and shouting non-stop when i pushed him along the path in our garden. Yesterday was Fathers Day we meant to get Terry a present, instead, Daniel got the present. Over the phone my mum said that Daniel was spoiled.

'Sex, City and Me'

Last night we watched the Sex, City and Me, a one-part drama about a high-flyer city woman who returned from her maternity leave just to found she was demoted and she had to start from scratch and finally lead to a fight for justice. I felt something stuck in my throat while watching it, especially for the scenes that everything in her life fell apart after baby came along... the invisible discrimination at work for being mum, endless row with husband who stays at home looking after baby (with help of nanny) after long hours at work, losing job, relationship breakdown, struggle for the legal case, prospect of never working in the city again... Can't believe institutional sexism is still so powerful even in 21st century Britain.

Daniel's sleeping problem

I seem to read and heard about people's babes who take long naps. Since my last bout of mastits I can't count on the number of times when Daniel ever had a stretch of nap longer than an hour. He's constantly screaming/crying before he finally fall asleep. He has many wrong sleep associations, breastmilk, dummy, cuddling (from Daddy), you name it! Yesterday i asked Terry 'am I a bad mother?' He said 'why?' I said 'cause I can't make Daniel sleep.' He said 'Don't be silly, you know you are a good mother!', I think I'm not in the sense of sorting out Daniel's sleeping routine.

Now I understand why some Mums said they hate Gina Ford, an authoritarian parenting guru, who promotes the military style rigid routine for babes. They said that Gina's methods makes them feel inadequate. I know babes thrive on a routine, but not sure if the routine should be sticked to a military(rigid) style. Though I'm not a massive routine person and I don't believe baby should be controlled for comfort. maybe it's the time to open Gina's book to get an insight just for my own sanity.

Daniel crawled a little bit today

Daniel hasn't shown much interest on crawling thought he's 7 month and a half old, each time I put him down for his tummy time, he would roll over on his back refusing to crawl no matter how i persuade him to do so. However, today it seemed he suddenly got the interest on crawling. As usual, I put him down on floor and threw couple of his favorite toys in front him. I expected he would roll over on his back and waiting for me to pick him up, to my surprise, he didn't roll over this time, he tried to move his body a little bit towards the toy, though he didn't achieve much, he certainly understand the concept of crawling is that by co-ordinating the movements of his legs and arms he can move his body.

Just an update

It has been raining for couple of days and some villages here were badly flooded. Yesterday when Terry came back home he said he saw some part of the field along the M1 was completely under the water at one point and lots of rescue vehicle, fire engines, TV cameras were there . We are lucky, our house locates on top of the hill overlooking the valley...

Because of the rain, I didn't take Daniel out last two days. He was still quite fretful. Normally once he gets decent sleep, He would be a happy baby. But sometimes he just can't fall asleep... Hehe, he woke up again, so i have to stop blogging right now.

Summer Snooze

Yesterday was a very warm summer day, We went to Toy R US for shopping. He has already outgrown his old boucer., wo we bought a new rocker for him. Opposite to his normal struggle before he finally get to sleep, Daniel fell asleep in the rocker like a granddad straight away without any help from us when we were sitting in the garden reading newspaper and drinking tea in the afternoon ...

Future vs. Present

Daniel proved to be hard work for me sometimes due to his inability to fall asleep on his own. For instance, yesterday was a really bad day. He picked up some virus and his voice turned very squeaky and hoarse again and got a bit temperature therefore was fretful all day. He couldn't go sleep no matter what methods I tried, he was so tired and frustrated that he cried each time his head touched bed and it drove me insane.. The day seemed long, Nevertheless, there are moments i found quite enjoyable for the day:

It was the moment when I was cooking I played a music CD titled Paris Cafe in the kitchen while Daniel was sittin in the highchair watching me cooking . It was French music. The music was so romantic and it stired up a lot of happy emotions on me, memory of River Seine, street cafes and sunny afternoons, Tuscany and cocktails. Daniel obviously like french music, he was cooing and showing off on his high chair... Asked myself, ' Do we have to wait the moment when we are 1) richer, 2)slimmer, 3) living in Hawaii to feel happier?' Deep down I know that, over the years, I have gradually swithed the mentality of living for future to more of lliving in the present...

We had another pleasant summer evening last weekend, 8.30pm Daniel fell asleep in Terry's arm in the settee, we put some cushions underneath him knowing he would be sound asleep until I put him in bed. The french door to the garden widely open inviting some of the outdoor's greeness into the lounge, it is so tranquil outside in the garden, only birds can heard. The sky was still blue with hints of orange as the sun going down behind the trees, classic music was playing on the audio inside lounge and floating outside to the garden...

Cognitive developement

One of the Daniel's behavior change I've noticed recently is that he has showed an increased interest on picture books instead of just dedicating his attention on chewing them or tearing the pages out. We bought couple of board books for him long time ago, things like Poppy Cat Splash, Bedtime Bear and fluffy counting book etc... then he received some free baby books from Health Visitor on his 7 month assessment, Peepo Baby, Happy Dog & Sad Dog. I've been reading the Peepo book, a pop-up board book and Bedtime Bear to him before his bedtime some evenings as part of the sleep training since the boobie trick doesn't work anymore. There is a large brand-new children library opened recently in our local library, I took him to there couple times to read the picture books and he loved it..

Daniel has a lot of interests on the world surrounding him.He definitely shows some signs of readiness for communication, Doing eye contacts with us all the time as if he's seeking approval; On vocal side, he's doing 'da,da,,, da' sound all the time and roaring sometime when he's showing off. On the wall our first floor hallway there is a painting which always excites him, each time I carry him upstairs, he would point the painting with quizzical look as if asking me what is that, obviously I always say 'painting' each time when we pass by... there are quite lot of examples like this in our day-to-day interactions. I know there would be a bit of time before his speech really kicks in, but he definitely understand some concepts now. Each time when I say 'deng, deng' (light in Chinese), he would raise his head up towards ceiling.

A summer evening

Yummy biscuit

Messy!

A summer evening

After being hospitalised for 3 weeks Terry has gone back to do his normal 7 hours a day at work, which means he comes back home 4pm again these days. Also, the day is getting longer as summer approaching, now it gets dark around 10pm, we now have time to enjoy our evening meal in the garden with Daniel sitting on the grass with cushions surrounding him. We actually had afternoon tea in the garden as well this afternoon. Daniel started to develop this very English habit. he was munching on a rusk while Terry and me were enjoying our tea and scorns at the table. Though I was a bit apprehensive about feeding him biscuit in the fear of ruining his teeth, but Terry insisted. Terry said Daniel hasn't got teeth yet and this will teach him how to feed himself. It looks Daniel is very keen on finger foods already. He sucked on the rusk with great enthusiasm and made mess all over his face and hands. He doesn't normally like to drink the diluted baby juice but with biscuit the water-downed drink has gone down well...

Today we sold our second home, a terraced house which was intended as our pension after we moved to current house. In the hindsight, I think we shouldn't bother estate agency next time when we come to sell house again. What the estate agency did does not justify what they charged. We got a full asking price long before we went on holiday in China, we thought the sale would go through when we come back, much to our disappointment, we found that nothing happened during our one month absence. The estate agency didn't chase up the sale. One thing lead another, the sale was delayed until we finally exchanged contract yesterday. Threatening us pulling out the last minute, the purchaser knocked down couple hundred pounds on price agreed before for some insurance policy covering planning permission for the extension of the house. We sold the house to improve our cash flow and enable me to stay home longer with Daniel.