An incident in the wee hours of the morning

There was an incident last night. After his 3am feed, I decided to change his nappy on a whim since I really didn't need to. The old diaper came off and of course minibeanie just had to turn onto his tummy since that's ALL he's doing these days. And so I was airing his bum since there was a hint of rash and admiring how cute his dimpled butt looked. Turned him over to put on a clean nappy and what do I find? A big wet patch on the bed. Thanks a lot, minibeanie!!! You wait till I tell your girlfriend at eighteen ;)

These are the hard lessons learnt:

1. Never change nappies on a whim.
..... or as I'd say regarding computers, "if it ain't broke, dun fix it"
2. Always use protection.
3. Never spend too much time admiring a chap's bum... unless he's toilet trained.

minibeanie is 7 months and 1 day old

Teething pains

I'd thought minibeanie's toothing experience would be a breeze but I suppose that would have been too easy. To borrow the term used in birthing, his bottom right incissor has crowned! The peek-&-boo game with the tooth is now over as the very tip of the tooth could be seen. And so it was yesterday that minibeanie was a handful, fussy and crying uncharacteristically. Today, it was as if the dark cloud has blown over - he's happy and tolerated shopping in the humid market quite well.

On hindsight, it makes sense how he was making smacking sounds with his lips over the last couple of days and how he was biting hard onto his spoon. Now, as the tooth emerged, it looked as if he was pushing against the strange intruder with his tongue. How adorable!

minibeanie is 7 months old

Imelda-mummy

I got my Pediped shoes! Hip-hip-hooray!! :D

First tooth!

minibeanie has a tooth! I'd wondered for 2 days if it was a tooth because there appeared to be something there. Then again, I thought it was a shadow hmm... and as expected, a 6 month old baby isn't very cooperative when told to open his mouth ;D My curiosity finally got the better of me after minibeanie's grandma mentioned she thought she saw a pearly. Washed my finger thoroughly then offered it to minibeanie as a chewing toy - yup, it was a tooth alright :>

minibeanie is 6 months, 3 weeks and 5 days old

A little worm

minibeanie would normally sleep in his crib but these are not ordinary circumstances. With his crib packed somewhere in Finland waiting for the airfreight, he has now taken to sleeping with us. Or rather me, since DH has graciously vacated our bed in favour of uninterrupted sleep. And so it was in such extraordinary circumstances, that I found myself to be awake since 4am because minibeanie was fussing, tossing and turning then.

3 hours on and a feed in between, I'm still up.


Anyhow, quite apart from the subject of sleep, or the lack thereof, minibeanie has recently started to creep! :) [For non-parents, that's usually the pre-crawl phase where babies are still pretty much on their tummies but still manage to move forwards (or backwards)]

minibeanie creeps like an overweight worm - he arches his bum, pulls up legs then extends his body forward. He accompanies this with lots of frustrated cries and it is heart-wrenching not to be helping him inch along. So far, he only creeps successfully on the bed. I suspect the sheets have less friction than his playmat thus explaining for the constant frustration whenever he's on the mat. Guess if I've been kept busy turning him over and ensuring he hasn't gotten himself into a fix!

minibeanie & his new friend, Teddy (or Nalle) or until a better name is thought up.

minibeanie is 6 months, 3 weeks and 4 days old

Baby mash

February 14, Thursday
minibeanie tried beef today - he's no longer a vegetarian! :D Today's lunch menu was potato, broccoli & beef. He frowned when he tasted the first morsel and took a long pause...before swallowing. After 3 spoonfuls, he wiped the back of his hands on his face and gave a long pleading grunt. Bits of broccoli became stuck in his nose and potato on his brows. Excellent. That was his way of saying, "no more!" but guess if it fell on deaf ears. Ok, there is a fine balance to thread between giving him total freedom to choose and making mealtimes world war 3. In the end, minibeanie ate half his lunch; I guess that was as good as it could get on the first try.


February 16, Saturday
There was more success with the potato-broccoli-beef combo today. He ate about 3oz, so that's about 85ml or so? We have increased his solid meals from 2 to 3. For breakfast, minibeanie had baby rice porridge with banana ("more more!"), lunch was potato, broccoli & beef (hmm, not a big fan of it) while supper was baby rice porridge again with applesauce ("yum!"). I'm considering switching the first meal to oat porridge for variety & more nutrition. Question to mums out there, what would your typical daily menu be like for a 6-month-old? :)


minibeanie is 6 months & 3 weeks old

Beginning of a Food War?

Ever since minibeanie started on solids about 3 weeks ago, I've been wondering if and when a food war will be waged. Well, maybe it has just started ;)

There are times when it's near impossible to get him to eat more than 3 teaspoons of the lovely mash. No amount of coaxing, bribing or silly voices/faces will do the trick. Of late, he has wizened up to the laughter-causes-u-to-have-a-spoon-in-your-mouth trick so he has clammed his mouth shut :D Not that That worked well; whenever a spoonful of mash is neatly deposited into his mouth, he squished his food out again. And as if to take revenge for mummy's mean trick, he would proceed to rub his mouth and eyes thus smearing mash all over his mouth, nose, eyes, forehead and hands. We have become a paper-towel family.

I hope someone will tell me that ups & downs in appetites is normal? And is there anything one can do to make baby eat more?

So far, I've introduced him to baby rice porridge, potato, broccoli, sweet potato and apple. Next on the menu are avocado, banana and meat! I'm thinking chicken or beef and perhaps fish as well. Something that he absolutely loves is applesauce with baby rice porridge :) I think minibeanie has a sweet tooth like mummy.


minibeanie is 6 months, 2 weeks & 3 days old

The Great Move

What a relief that the Great Move is now behind us. I can't begin to describe how hectic, stressful & exhausting the past week had been. Since last Friday, there had been a flurry of farewells, packing, moving & re-packing for 16 to 20 hours on end. On the eve of the Move, we slept 2 hours before the first set of packers came at 8:30 in the morning. I never knew we had SO much stuff! Do we really need everything? Countless boxes, another set of movers to take away our remaining furniture and 14.5 hours later, we left the apartment that had been home for 4.5 years. Then, a 15 hour flight on Friday morning and we're in Singapore with 92kg of luggage, ready to drop like flies.

It's good to be back in Singapore. I'm pleasantly surprised by the relative ease of using our Stokke pram. There could be more ramps but at least lifts are usually available and the walkways are smooth.

And as expected, minibeanie is having a case of jetlag. He had trouble going to bed this evening or should I say 1am. But he's a real trooper - he didn't fuss much during the Move and the flight, and took the stress of being in a strange place rather well. I mean, during our walk at Orchard Road today, his large eyes were framed by brows that were slightly knitted; it was almost as if he didn't quite know what to make of all the people, the strange sounds and the humidity.

Alright, I just caught myself dozing off....


minibeanie is 6 months & 2 weeks old

Food pyramid

5 days to the Great Move. On Wednesday, 2 moving companies will be coming over to pack & move everything save for the kitchen sink. I'm feeling slightly panicky. There's a nagging feeling that I can be doing something more productive (e.g. like packing my CDs instead of blogging for instance!) or that I'm going to forget something huge. And all this time, minibeanie is blissfully enjoying his sweet potato mash (he loves that btw!), rolling over onto his tummy and demanding to be turned back again.

Anyhow, as part of the Great Move To-Do list, we went to buy minibeanie's supplies this evening. The total tally is 42 jars of baby food, 14 packs of formula powder & 50 swimming diapers. A word of defence regarding the jars of baby food. I'm pretty much an old-school believer in homemade foods being best, so more than half of those jars are berries that I'm pretty sure can't be gotten in China. The rest are meant to be little meals for when we are out somewhere. It's a little like always having a spare tyre in your car; you never know when you're going to need it ;)

From top to bottom, left to right: Raspberry-blueberry-apple, Forest berries, Vegetable-ham, potato-meat, Turkey-broccoli, Potato-flounder, Salmon

Tomorrow, we'll be sweeping the milk powder shelves off another supermarket. By my estimate, minibeanie will need 50 packs until his 1st birthday. More than 100 liters in all- that's a lot of milk!


minibeanie is 6 months & 1 week old

Turd

Before the baby came along, poop is never discussed in polite society. Period. Now with a baby, there's keen interest in the what, when & how. I must have mentioned 'poop' 68 times in this blog and this 69th time, is about the 'turd'.

Couple of days ago, after I'd started minibeanie on solids, DH cried out from the bathroom. "Come and see the turd!" With all the eagerness of a teenage girl going to meet Brad Pitt, I bounded to the bathroom. Indeed, instead of the sticky, bottom-smearing poop of the past 6 months, was an almost playdough-like piece of err....turd that came off easily from the bottom. Fascinating.


minibeanie is 6 months & 5 days old

6 months

minibeanie's half a year old! :) On Saturday, we met up with a couple of friends with small Finnish-Chinese babies. minibeanie's the eldest at 6 months, followed by Oscar at 4 months and Emil at 2.5 months. It's often said (and so true at that) that once you have a baby, your entire social life changes. Suddenly, all you ever meet are families with children - the closer in age to yours the better ;) That's because you know you won't bore each other with stories of breastfeeding, poop & how baby is/is not sleeping through the night. A friendly and sympathetic ear is guaranteed. And you needn't feel guilty when the little one cries or fusses because you know that your friends understand. Isn't everyone on the same boat? ;)

From right to left: Emil, Oscar & minibeanie.

Here's the recipe for the semolina cake (Finnish- mannakakku) that I made for the little gathering.

• 5dl semolina (tummia manna)
• 100g butter
• 2dl sugar
• 2dl plain yoghurt
• 1dl cream
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1tbsp baking powder
• 2tsp vanilla sugar
• whole blanched almonds for decoration
• 2/3dl dark syrup
• whipped cream OR vanilla sauce

Preheat oven to 220C. Melt butter. Mix all dry ingredients. Have all liquids at room temperature and mix together. Stir in liquids into dry ingredients. Pour into a greased pan. Decorate with blanched almonds and bake for around 30min.

Remove from oven and while the cake is still hot, pour the dark syrup over it. Enjoy with whipped cream or vanilla sauce.
[For a healthier version, use vegetable oil to replace butter & lite cream)


minibeanie is 6 months & 1 day old

"This is a car and it goes Vroom Vroom"

The roads are no longer safe! That's because I got my driver's license today! :> After 16hr 25min of lessons that included a lesson on moose avoidance and driving in slippery conditions, I could finally heave a sigh of relief. But I got an extra dose of slippery training today because my driving test was done on the worst winter day of the year. Not bluffing because it was actually reported on the Finnish news!

It'd been a bleak and snow-less winter so far but today, on the day of the test, there was a blizzard. Murphy's Law. Blessing or curse? The good thing is, I could go really slow.... the flip side though is that with gale force wind and a horizontal snow storm, it makes visibility really poor and grip a lot worse :# There was a white knuckle moment when I came to stop on a really steep slope and I just couldn't go even when the clutch was at the biting point because of the 5-10cm of snow. Argh...After several attempts of biting point-right foot off brake-slide-brake-clutch down-turn ignition key-------, I figured that the only way was to have my right foot at a 45 degree angle so that I could depress the gas pedal as soon as the tip of my right foot was off the brake. At this point, I was positively sweating under the collar :D


minibeanie is 5 months, 4 weeks & 2 days old

First 'bite'

Let me retract my statement about minibeanie not having jet-lag. Over the last 2 days, he had been waking up at 4 and 3 in the morning respectively. And he seemed to have gotten terribly hungry as well. He would put everything that his pudgy little hands could lay hold of into his mouth - his socks, tissue, my bill..... Ok, I know this wasn't related to hunger; more like insatiable curiosity on how every darn thing tastes ;P Anyway, it was true that his appetite appeared to have gone up a notch. Today, I felt as if I was doing nothing but feeding him!

We started minibeanie on solids yesterday (how fun!!!). I'm glad I managed to stave off pressure from the neuvola (Finnish clinic) & DH to start on solids sooner. Now, nearly 6 months old, I think minibeanie's ready. I decided to debut with rice porridge soon to be followed by mash potato, then carrot, sweet potato and avocado. With the rice porridge, the lil 'un loved it! he lapped up a grand amount of 3-4 teaspoons each time :D

Waiting expectantly...this picture doesn't do justice to the almost palpable excitement and anticipation bubbling beneath the surface.

UUMMMM!

minibeanie is 5 months & 4 weeks old

Back in Helsinki

We survived the flights back home! All in, the time we left our hotel in Chengdu to the time we reached home took nearly 24 hours :( We swore never to take this particular route again.....

Amazingly, minibeanie adapted immediately to the Finnish timezone. He was up & chirpy up at his 'usual' time at 7, pooped promptly after his first feed and showed no signs of crankiness - couldn't say the same for his parents! In retrospect, I guess he never left the Finnish timezone :D

Back in Helsinki, the real move begins. Moving companies to contact and loads of packing to do. And in the midst of all this hassle, time to start minibeanie on solids!


minibeanie is 5 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old