Little wobbler

This evening, we hung out in the park swinging and soaking up the gorgeous sunshine. While I was lazing on the grass, Elle stood up and cruised around the stroller. A moment later I found her pushing the stroller and walking behind it as if the stroller is a push walker toy. I jumped on my feet and cheered for her pushing the stroller one round and another. She was so excited and having heaps of fun! Oh mine! How I wish I had my camera to capture this great moment!

Elle shows lots of interest in walking lately. She is making more steps on her own now, walking a few steps and then holding on something cruising around.

Tulip festival

1st Birthday Party

Throwing a party is not something right up our alley. The thought of we should have celebrated Elle's birthday just the three of us, kept crossing our mind.

The night before the party did not start off good at all. Elle had diarrhea, 5 times, throughout the day. She was screaming and crying all night long until she finally drifted into sleep at around 11 p.m. We were pretty exhausted by then. I finally had time to get on my ambitious plan to make Elle her 1st birthday cake, a fancy 3-layered strawberry mousse charlotte cake. My confidence started to ebb away by the time I sliced the cake into 3 layers. The texture of the sponge cake was so coarse and it tasted so oily. After struggling with my inner self for a while, I just dumped the fruit of 12 eggs and several hundred grams of flour into the trash can. I went to tell Hin that we need to get Elle's a birthday cake tomorrow morning. He gave me the look and said I told you so!

This morning started off early juggling with the little one, preparation, cooking, buying a cake, picking up balloons and sushi. An unforgettable incident happened during the sushi pick-up. I was talking to Hin on the cell when I was going to leave D&W after picking up the sushi. Out of a sudden, I heard someone screaming and saw a man waving aggressively from my rear mirror. Then there's car horn sounds. My first reaction was am I in the way of something and immediately I pressed hard on the gas pedal and drove away. I was really puzzled what was going on and kept looking back my rear mirror. The man was still waving his two hands back there. At that moment, I saw an object sliding from my rear window to the top of the trunk. OMG! It's my sushi tray! Immediately, I turned the car into an alley to rescue my sushi. Thanks goodness! It stayed put on top of the trunk in perfect shape. Later on, I found my cell thrown on the other seat and Hin was still remaining on the other side of the line. My mind was so clouded, overloaded with stuffs then. Looking back, it sounds pretty funny now.

I'm amazed that we were right on time to get things transported to the club house around 1 pm. Thanks to Jessie and her family's big help. Hin was pretty much taking care of everything during the party and mama just needed to be with Elle enjoying friends' company. We had a blast and a few dramas like the balloons were stuck at the high-ceiling fan, and we found Elle's hair clip inside Michelle's mouth. The party hit high note at birthday cake time and Elle in her pink tutu I made for her. She looked so cute wobbling in her puffy tutu.

The party ended at around 6 pm with a few friends leaving behind. The guys, among them were 3 engineers, brain-cracking ways to free the balloons tangled around the ceiling fan. At first they used an extension duster trying to unravel the tangled ribbons, but with little progress made. Then, they tied the birthday cutting knife to the end of the duster attempting to cut off the ribbons. Holy moly, people at the downstairs were Oooh and Aaah and dodging when the knife was flying by. It's like a circuit show. Finally the balloons were freed and retrieved with a few floating around. They came out the stunt of throwing the duster knife up in the air to poke the balloon. Viola! Mission accomplished. Elle was pretty entertained with the show the guys put up.

We were dog-tired after the party. Elle conked out after taking a bath and having a bottle of milk.

Thanks to all the friends joining us celebrating Elle's 1st birthday.

Habits

Elle gets the hang of throwing tantrum recently. Whenever she points at something that she wants and we refuse to give her, she'll start screaming and flailing her arms and legs. It's getting a lot more interesting when she's on the floor. When thing doesn't go her way, you'll see her face wrinkles into a crying face and lies there in a prayer position thrashing her arms. She'll stay there and refuse to get up until we come over to pick her up.

Her mouthy habit is persistent. It's not that hard to tell from her suspicious face when she has something inside her mouth. She'll turn her head to peep at us several times as if making sure we're not aware of what she has done. That's totally a guilty act! Some interesting stuffs, which we know of, that she picks up and puts into her mouth are hair clip, grass, flower, rock, and crispy chicken pieces that dropped off to the floor days ago. I found a screw inside her mouth a couple of days ago. Cross our finger she's not going to try something more dangerous next time.

Baby playdate

These two have moments of pulling shirt and pushing one to the floor.

Michelle is such an easy-going, happy baby. On the contrary, Elle is not so friendly and does not willing to play with her at first. It takes a while for her to break the ice.

100 steps

Sunny and cold crisp day. A big change from yesterday warm breezy weather. We spent the afternoon outside the apartment letting Elle to get down on her hands and knees on the grass having funs of plucking flowers and grass. She loves to be on the grass now and I'm surprise to see her enjoy crawling around.

She's really good at picking up stuffs and then giving it to us. She never gets tired of repeating the picking-up-and-giving act gazillion times. Playing with rocks is another fun game for her. I just sit there with both of hands openned, and she'll fill my hands with plenty of rocks in no time.

She is getting addicted to walking when we hold both her hands. We're having heaps of fun walking on the concrete outside the apartment building. We walked exactly 100 steps until we hit the edge of the concrete. I tried to stop twice at the 50th step and 80th step. However, she kept holding my hands up expressing that she wanted to walk more.

Naked baby

This is the Elle I picked up at the daycare this evening. Oh yeah, topless! It's hilarious to see her half naked walking on her knees towards me.

The staff told me that she was making a mess to her shirt during lunch time. They couldn't find any non-wintery clothes for her to change so they just left her topless in this warm weather day.

Blossom

Strawberry face in swing

Wobbly baby steps

A little helper helping mama by picking up clothes from the laundry basket and then throwing them behind her for mama to fold them. Isn't she the greatest?

Elle's making her first wobbly steps all by her own while trashing the living room today. She found two bookmarks within a pile of books. Then, she turned around and stood up waving the bookmarks one in each hand at me. My eyes almost popped out when she started walking towards me. I hold my breath counting each step she made. One, two, three and then she fell on her butt.

Doze off

Elle has been dozing off during dinner for two days straight already. She must be pretty worn out during the day. It's funny to watch her drifting into sleep. She was so tired to keep her eyes open while munching on the strawberry. Her head moved in circular motion, knocking side to side and up and down.

Kiss of Spring

Feel the breeze blows in the face, smell the scent of the grass, rub the feet against the grass, and bathe in the sunshine. The magic of Spring. A rebirth of life.

The trees are blooming already. Elle's pretty intrigued when I pointed the spring bud to her. She seems to be a little skeptical of the idea of sitting on the grass at first. She sits with one of her leg lifts half way up as if the grass bites. To help her exploring this new textile she has never experienced before, I coax her to touch the grass, pull the grass from the soil and throw them in the air letting them fall down. Oh well, the next thing she does is shoving the grass into her mouth! I suppose organic grass is good for baby.

Punishment

What a dad will do to a naughty baby? Wrap around her fingers with bandage and wear a watch around her leg. That's exactly what happens when Elle with her dada at home today. Elle doesn't seem to mind the punishments imposed upon her at all. She's happy like a clam, playing with a bandage hand and spending a great deal of time figuring out how to get rid of the bandage and watch. Silly baby.

I love strawberry

Elle absolutely loves strawberry. No matter how sour the pick makes her face getting all squishy, she'll munch it down anyway.

In the evening, while her dada and her were lounging on the couch, she plucked her dada leg hair and put it into her mouth. We screamed out loud Oh oh Oooooh and tried to dig the hair out of her mouth. Oh well, it was too late. It got more hilarious when seeing her plucking another leg hair and handing it over to her dada's mouth. That's one funny baby blooper moment.

NYC

We had spent the last whole week in NYC with a baby in tow. 13 hours road trip with a baby between Kalamazoo and NYC was not bad at all, but tiring indeed.

Speaking from this experience, don't even think about carrying a baby to get around the city, especially ours is a super-wriggly one. Stroller is a godsend in this city. It's a challenge to find a bathroom with a baby changing station in the city. We learned it the hard way on the first day that a stream of pee came right out of Elle's soaked diaper onto me. Later on, we figured out changing her diaper inside the stroller simply gets the job done.

Subway is much more baby-friendly that we thought. When Elle was asleep, we just pushed her in the stroller into the subway. It allowed us to enjoy a 40 minutes peaceful ride when she was sleeping. She's a handful when she's awake. Her spunky energy just made our head ache and spin. Imagine we had to deal with her making screeching noise on the wall panel, uttering a bunch of gibberish, staring at people sitting on her sides, arm flapping, body twisting and touching people's hat and shirt during the long ride.

Elle was having a feast in the NYC. She pretty much ate everything we had, even though she has only two teeth. Surprisingly, she loves kangkung belacan. Regardless of our intention to give her the first bite to make her stay away from it, she kept wanting more and more.

It's funny to watch the way Elle behaved when Hin's brother and his roommates were around. She would sit still, stare at them, make little puppy's whining noise, and did not willing to eat when we fed her. The moment they turned around and left out of her sight, she'd lean forward to bite her food and then wriggled out of our arms and cruised around the couch. It's hilarious to see her freeze instantly when there are people came out again.

Co-sleeping with a baby with a terrible sleeping posture can be hurtful. We were awaken at least several times each night by a fistful punch, a kick, or a body thrown upon us. I wonder why she can't sleep like a normal person. Aside from being with a bad sleeper, the bed itself is another major reason that caused us sleeping restlessly. For the record, that bed is as hard as a rock. It's meant to be good for people with back pain. However, for normal people like us, it's a torture. It's ridiculously funny to see Elle's expression when she fell to the bed on her butt for the first time. Against all her expectation, the bed didn't bounce her back at all.

This is an eye-opening trip for Elle, surrounded with crowds, skyscrapers, traffics, and noises that she had never experienced before.

So long, NYC.

11 months old

30 days countdown to your first birthday and you'll be 365 days old. Happy 11 months old, our sweetheart!