Piccies!

OOH! Before I forget to mention this, Aidan's really teething now! The tip of his bottom tooth is edging out above his gum - you can really see it, and feel it too (esp. when breastfeeding, yikes!) Will try to take some pics if he'll let me.

Here're some shots of him STANDING up in his cot! And bouncing up and down too...














This last pic is the one I wrote about y'day, about coming into his room after hearing his fuss/cry for about 10 mins, and he's finally fallen asleep. It was waaaaay past his naptime - he skipped his earlier nap in fact! - and hates falling asleep alone (he has this thing for hands and fingers. He must grip or be close to our hands to sleep!), especially when he's sitting up and doesn't quite know how to lie back down on his own. But as you can see, he eventually did - doubled-up!

I keep finding him...

1. Standing! In his cot, in his playpen. Adorability factor: warp-speed 5!


2. Falling asleep doubled-up. As in he's bent from the waist down over his legs, face on the mattress or pillow. It's what happens when he's fussing and crying and then falls asleep sitting up! EG took a few photos; I'll put them up soon.

SO! Ho hum today was another day I spent indoors but with the cool addition of EG around. It's really nice having the whole family together, I will miss it when he starts getting really busy when the cafe's up and running. Treasuring these moments while I can.

I love where we live right now - too bad we've gotta move soon! The house we bought is nearing completion, and we'd have to say goodbye to the convenience of Puckle Street. I'll miss that. I'll also miss having Ellie hanging around the house - she's so great with Aidan, she's a BIG help, and she really keeps me sane (hard when it's just the baby and me in the house alone!). I'm really hoping she can move in with us to the new house, but we'll have to see - it's a touch inconvenient for her (altho we can work that out), and EG's concerned his parents won't have a place to stay when they come visit if she takes the 3rd bedroom. But it'll really help with rent, and EG, Aidan and I really love having Ellie around!

Anyhoos! Aidan's cold has cleared up, altho he's still scratching away at his face again. Booo... my sis-in-law suggested coconut oil that's really helped her daughter, so we're gonna go check it out and see if we can get some. The emu oil we bought worked a little, then stopped - same with the pharmaceutical medicines (like cortisone and elidel), so we're a little tired of trying now. I've even stopped eating whole eggs! Still praying!

Colds and sniffles

The past few days have been pretty hard, 'coz Aidan's down with a cold again. Snotty nose, drool, and 'coz of the dehydration, dry stools. Poor baby!

That also means the day-sleeps are erratic (if he does sleep at all), although thankfully he still sleeps for a stretch at night. But it's been tiresome having to cajole him to take his naps, or entertain him when the cajoling fails. He's being extra clingy as well, so it's tiring!

Right now he's still half-crying, half-whining in his cot. I hear smatterings of other syllables which is a good sign - that just means he's complaining too, and not just crying the whole way through! He actually fell asleep earlier on, but I made the mistake of covering him with his blanket and he woke up and has refused to return to sleep since then! How tiresome... poor bubba. His skin's not helping either.

Sigh! It's gonna be a long day again... 3 days stuck at home without stepping out once! (Didn't want the cold air to affect him) The spell will break tonight - I'm heading out to catch up with some of my old house-church girls and see how they're doing!

Wii Fit part 2

I tell ya, the Wii Fit really works out your abs - maybe not in the way you think. Just imagine those abdominal muscles contracting as you convulse in laughter. You get the idea!

So! For YOUR benefit as well, here's some ab training for you!



PS. EG really got a good workout outta this one. So did I. Seriously, hoola-hooping can be extremely tiring! Phew!

Sleeps

We had a bit of a scare last night, when EG went to pick Aidan up to resettle him. His face was reddish, and when EG looked at his own left shoulder (the one Aidan was leaning on) his white t-shirt was covered in blood! Lots of it. Poor bubba had scratched his face badly, and I think his gums too. His breath smelled of blood.

Sigh. Last week his eczema had completely cleared up! It lasted for 2 days, then came back. I'm wondering if we over-used the cream that was working for him. We've stopped using that now, and upp-ed his sorbolene moisturiser. Boo... poor baby. I never realised how distressed I was by it until it actually cleared up and I good sense my mood lighten up! But now...ah wells. At least the discharge in his eye cleared up after medication drops, and he's sleeping through!

YES, did I mention it before? He's sleeping through! After all the routines and sleep training and upp-ing his solids intake, my bubba can sleep till 7am without me needing to resttle him in the middle of the night! He's doing 9pm to 7am, with a sleepy top-up at 11pm, although we're gonna try eliminating that last one, and adjusting him eventually so he can do 7pm - 7am. FINALLY!

So overall, I'm grateful. I'm getting more sleep. We've got a comfortable life here in Australia. I've got a fantastic husband who does more than his fair share of caring for bubba while working hard to provide for us. God is good. Life is good too!

Everyone's gotta have naked baby pictures

Allo... don't I have a fantastic come-hither look?

Me and my fishies in the tub!

Mmmm...yummy fishies...

Here's Aunty Ellie - she takes GREAT care of me when Mummy and Daddy are out!

Updates

1. He can retain object permanence, meaning when an object is hidden under, say, a cloth, he'll pull the cloth away to find it! This can be cute, but also dangerous 'coz I can't hide his tubes of creams for his eczema away from his fast fingers and mouth.

2. When you put a finger to his lips, he'll make a continuous sound 'coz he knows you'll tap his lips so he can go "boo boo boo boo boo...boo boo boo boo boo..." Haha!

3. He crawls FAST. Pounds across the carpet floor to whatever piques his interest.

4. He understands No. Or rather, the tone associated with No. He'll pick up say, a power cord, and I'll call out "No, Aidan!" sternly, and he'll drop it, turn to look at me, or just pause and sits there. Then he'll try again. Cheeky boy!!

Anyhoos, yesterday we went to Stephen's birthday dressed as a pirate family! Yup, it was a Pirate-themed costume party, and boy did we look good! Me with my one hooped earring and b/w scarf wrapped around my head, EG with his loose white shirt and bandanna, and a faux parrot stuck to his shoulder (ok, it was a toy mandarin duck - and it quacks!), and little Aidan went as deck-swabber castaway boy - the lowest on the pirate pecking order. He was a cutie.


The 2nd one we were supposed to look like fierce pirates, but obviously Aidan and I misheard the instructions.

Autumn

I love the green and and gold of Autumn leaves cascading down outside my window. It's gorgeous! Crisp and scrunchy. Aidan loves sitting amongst them and picking the leaves as they fall atop him one by one, shaken from their branches by the cool breeze. They cover the courtyard decking in a blanket of gorgeous golden light.

How wonderful Creation can be.

I look at Aidan and I remember that everyday. My beautiful boy, alert, active, quick on his feet, and with his hands too! My iBook spacebar is no longer the same after he had a go at it yesterday. Forgivemyrun-onsentencebutthat'swhathappenswithaspacebarthat'sbeenri ppedfromitshomeandreattached.

What a cheeky bugger!

Fit as a fiddle

I am now the proud owner of the Wii Fit! Hooray - exercise at my convenience. No more having to dress Aidan up and lugging all his possessions around just so I can endure a 1-hr gym class. Now, whenever he's asleep, I can do yoga, play soccer, dance etc. all in the comfy of my own home!

At least, that's what I hope my latest purchase will encourage me to do. I still have another 7 kgs to lose (can u believe it? I've lost 10 already! Albeit about 3 kgs were the baby and fluids... but still, that's an achievement!)

We shall see!

Aidan leopard-crawling

Head & shoulders, knees & toes

He's got a fascination with body parts I reckon, not in that horrible macabre way like serial killers are, or models, but he loves grabbing and gripping my fingers, stroking my arm, holding my hand so he can fall asleep.

And when he's awake, he'll spy my toe and try to gum it, spy my elbow and try to gum it, spy my chin and try to gum it.

Maybe he thinks they're just really big versions of the veggie rusks he likes chewing on.

I'd like to think he just loves his mama very, very much.

Ooh forgot to mention about our trip to Sydney!

Here're some highlights:
1. Coughed my way through the trip with a cold. Especially in the rain. Gagh.
2. Ate at Billy Kwong's (delish!) for dinner and Marigold (delish!) for yum cha.
3. Bought my hoodie and found Emu Oil for Aidan!

The latter's really important... Aidan's eczema's really bad, and all the creams and lotions and steroids (yes! steroids! he's been put on cortisone cream) don't seem to be working too well. A doctor friend who's a dermatologist suggested emu oil 'coz a lot of her patients have anecdotally mentioned it's worked really well for them. We shall see...they've a money-back guarantee anyways.

Mobiles and mobility

The day has finally arrived. Or rather, is in the midst of arriving. Aidan's starting to crawl! And he's getting quicker by the day.

He can do this leopard-crawl/squirm thing with his body, and uses the function of his well-defined toes to inch his way to wherever his target is. And it's usually the shiny metal leg of the dining chair.

Man, what upper-body strength! If I had half that much strength, I'd be, well, erm, fitter. But he can hoist his ENTIRE body up using just his arms in order to gum the chair leg! His butt actually lifts off the ground! Picture a koala perched on a eucalyptus tree, and there you have it.

It's just the most adorable thing to watch. I'll sit some distance away from him, and dangle his favourite ball or a set of jangly keys and coax him to make his way over to me. He starts up sitting, then lunges forward so his hands are on the floor, flattens his body and starts wriggling side to side. He'll twist and turn and push forward with the tips of his toes until he eventually reaches me. That is if he doesn't get distracted halfway by another shiny object of course. By, hurrah, he's here!!! Woohoo, what a smart strong boy! Wait till he starts crawling properly, then he'll REALLY be a headache. Gotta get me those stair-gates so he doesn't tumble down.

Thing is, with him being so mobile now, I've to keep rescuing objects from his slobber...like wires, remote controls and mobile phones. SIGH! A "NO! Aidan. NO CHEWING ON WIRES!!!" gets greeted with a silly grin. As if he were saying, "Aww shucks mum, I know you said no chewing on wires, but look at me, I'm too cute to really listen to you 'coz I know you'll let me get away with it won't you...won't you?"

"And I know you said that mobile phones and remote controls aren't safe for me to nibble on, but hey, I'm a tough little bugger and isn't it more fun when the TV channels keep changing randomly while you're watching it anyway? Teeheehee..."

Growl. He knows it. Wait till a small thwack lands on his chubby little thigh! (Altho, having tried it once, I've concluded his skin's too thick to feel anything 'coz he just blinks at me and carries on...) Anyhoo! I should take a video and post it up (Sidenote: reason why I haven't been posting video is 'coz my camera takes really huge files and I can't upload it on blogger or youtube! Humph. So I have all these great videos for you guys to see... it's just sitting in my camera. Boo...)

In other news, we saw the Maternal health nurse today, and it seems Aidan's a little under is projected weight for his age. She says it's normal with kids his age being active and all (and he is VERY active), but I realise he can and should be eating a lot more solids than he is right now (which is about 1-2 teaspoons of pureed veggies). So I'm upping his intake and just now I gave him 2 serves of his usual carrot...which he took forever to finish but he did eventually. So I'm supposed to add to his diet some meat too (like shredded chicken), and maybe some rice porridge (chok) with fish. He likes drinking from his sippy cup which is great! Bypassed the spout lid, and went straight for the curved sippy lid. Cutey patootie!


We got ours from Stevie-boy, who works at Heinz and gets stuff cheap from the Heinz mart! He gave us this plus the weaning-bowl set Aidan has - so sweet! Only thing is, the Heinz mart sells them in just one colour...so my boy uses a pink and purple tumbler and bowl & spoon. Hey, he has no issues, I repeat, no issues with it okay! Boys can like pink - think (urgh, hate this overused term) metrosexual! We are raging against the matriarchal machine that dictates women dominate the pastel-colour market. We are raging against the patriarchal hegemony that says boys who like pink are effeminate and hence weak pansies. We defy the monolith that is today's socio-cultural influence over our lives!!

Ok lah, you got me. It's free, so we keep.

7 months and counting!

Booo.... I think I've caught someone's cough 'coz I'm feeling scratchy in the throat and my head hurts a little. It's a combination of tiredness (not to do with Aidan this time - I've been really engrossed with a book I'm reading and have sacrificed sleep to follow it's compelling story), and dehydration. I'm guessing at least.

Yesterday, Aidan was running a temperature - about 38.1 degrees. Worried me a fair bit, but for a kid who has a fever, he's pretty alert and bouncy! Kinda reminds me of the time my brother had a fever - 40 degrees! - when he was about 2 years old. He was hospitalised, but my mum said he was jumping up and down holding onto the edge of the cot. What a trooper; maybe Aidan's inherited the Wong family resilience. I have to say, all of us growing up hardly ever fell sick. Praise God for good health!

That said, I do hope I recover soon...praying for healing. Hack gack cough wheeze... I really wanna recover before our weekend trip to Sydney for our anniversary! EG arranged it - with Shawn and Wency who're going too - so I'm really looking forward to it!

ANYHOO! Baby Aidan's turned 7 months today! He's growing so quickly...wow can't believe time's passed so fast! Happy 7 months bubba! Love you heaps you adorable you.

Food glorious food

So, we've just started on avocado, and had carrots last week, and he seems to really like it!

Thing is, I also think it's what accounts for his lethal, and I mean LETHAL farts.

Man, if there's one thing he's inherited from me, it's that (haha)!

Here I am, just watching TV with him by my side, or cuddling him in bed. And pwhooh suddenly there's a pong in the air. And it stinks!

"Baby! Is that you?!"
And like any other farter, he grins to let me know he's pretty proud of it.





Oh yeah, it's our 3rd anniversary today!