The start of bumps?

My little boy just fell down the two steps we have that lead into the sunroom (it's like split level). He is normally very good at going to the edge, turning around and crawling backwards down the steps. But today as I cleared up the dinner we ate in the sunroom, I turned around to see him barely standing on the edge of the top stair while holding the tv remote in his hands. As usual I called out his name to ask him to move back but momentum must've pulled him forward. I let go of everything I was holding in my hands and dived to the end of the stair as he fell forward, doing a side summersault and landing on the bottom step on his back. I have no idea if he hit his head first or body first. I seriously do not recall. I just know one second he was standing facing the bottom of the stair with half his feet on the stair and half too far forward and the next second he landed on the bottom on his back. I don't think I have ever screamed his name so loudly before. Luckily the mug I was holding did not shatter as it hit the floor when I dropped it to catch him. Of course I was too late and he wailed his heart out and sobbed and hiccupped. After a few minutes of crying though he stopped and just looked at me while I talked to hubs letting him know what had happened.

Seriously? I mean... he hit the tile floor. He possibly hit his head or body on the first step before falling on the bottom step. He DIVED head first. I do not understand how he did not have a major injury. I rubbed his head and aside from a little bit of whining (probably coz it was still tender), he didn't complain about anything else. He was his talkative, thrashing around self 5 minutes later. I showed hubs how he fell and hubs couldn't believe it either. Of course now I'm paranoid and wondering if he has some internal injury that I can't sense or tell. But maybe we were being watched over and we were being protected? I am so so thankful that he's okay. And I am not looking forward to his other adventures and falls.

I'm still here

Ok where do I even start? First sorry for the disappearance. When you're tired and cranky from working all day and your toddler won't let you sit at the computer it's kind of hard to post anything. And so much for posting from my blackberry. It takes forever to write anything on that tiny keyboard. Grr....

Anyway, we're all good. E is thriving and growing well. I'm having my share of challenges at work. Hubs is done with his contract at his current clinic and will be joining a different group next month. Tons of stuff going on for sure. The weather is warmer and with that comes more outdoor activities of course. Who wants to stay cooped up in the house?

Before I forget... E turned 15 months a couple weeks ago. We went for his baby well check up and he's doing good. Weight - 22lbs Height 29inches. He's so much more leaner now. No more chubbiness. With all his food allergies I am going to see a nutritionist to ensure that he is getting all the right nutrients. I've looked up online but there aren't as many resources for toddler diets who are allergic to dairy, egg, garbanzo beans and tahini. He's still getting breastmilk so at least I know he's getting enough nutrients that way. But I'm thinking of really slowing down soon. Especially since ramadan is coming up. I know I can still do it through Ramadan. And well, who knows really what'll happen. But I really want to stop pumping and with the reduction in pumping I am unsure of how much of a supply I will still have. It's really wierd I want to stop but at the same time I don't coz I don't want to deprive E of his daily nutrient and of course I like the bonding sessions we have while I nurse.

Anyhoo our little boy is certainly showing his emotions a lot more now. He'll cry when he doesn't get something and laugh hysterically when he finds something funny. Doesn't ever sit still anymore. When I work from home I always hear the pitter patter of his tiny feet as he speeds across the floors of our house. It's so cute. Everything is still mama, baba or nye nye... but it's quite clear what he means for each word. He is picking up sign language like crazy. He can learn a sign in 2-3 days. But depending on how frequent we use them, he sometimes forgets or mixes them up. And of course some of them are our own made up signs. For my own record I just want to list all that he can sign now.

More
All Done
Milk (finally!)
Food/Eat
Up
Help Please
Thank You
Cat
Dog
Fish
Potty
Juice/Water
Ouchie
No
Flower
Baby

Oh speaking of baby.... I'm an aunt!! My brother and his wife had their baby girl on Sunday 6/14 at 1406 hundred. How cool is that huh? That's how I started teaching E the sign for baby. I showed a picture of his cousin and kept saying baby and showing him the sign and he copied me. It was one of the easier signs he learned for sure. Anyway, mom and baby are doing well. Baby does have some mmm.... differences than a normal baby. But we are taking it in stride and are praying that it is only cosmetic. Unfortunately the doctors cannot scan her till she's at least 3 years old. So in the meantime we are going to just go with the flow and take care of her. Seriously there are way worse stuff that could have happened. So we are all just glad she's healthy despite this one thing.

Gosh I'm so sleepy. E still wakes up at night and nurses. I do hope he will be able to sleep through the night soon. Sometimes I get a fluke night and he sleeps the whole night through and boy those are heavenly nights. Other nights though he wants to hold on to me for dear life it seems like.... I don't get very good rest at all.

Oh by the way we are scheduled for a 20 hour flight next month. Visiting family back home since my brother is getting hitched. What the heck do you do with a 15 month old on a 20 hour flight? Hooo boy.

14 months and it just went by

Ok. late update. Haven't logged on to my pc at home at all. Work has finally started gearing up and it's neverending fire stomping from the moment I get to my desk to the moment I leave. Luckily I have good teammates - well, at least one person is getting on my nerves but lets' save that for another entry.

Little E (or not so little anymore?) turned 14 months like what? 2 weeks ago? Bad mommy - no updates.

Seriously, he's absorbing everything like a sponge! He's learned to blow a kiss, sign thank you (almost same thing right?) and the latest thing - potty. Yup, my little one knows when he goes or is about to go. He'll sign potty. I know he's really young still and most ppl haven't started potty training at this age. But I got him one of this seat inserts and he loves sitting on there and then flushing afterwards. Sometimes he starts off in the diaper and then finishes off on the toilet. But hey - at least some of the diapers are saved u know? And I don't push him at all. When he signs I ask if he wants to sit on the toilet. If he 'says' no, we don't push it. Sometimes he says yes and we quickly go to the toilet - i don't even carry him there. He totters along behind me and then waits until I put the insert seat on the throne, take of his diapers and then he'll sit on the potty and do his business. With the sound and all. Sometimes we sit in the bathroom for a bit coz he will take a while to go but when he's done he'll arch his back to get off. We wash up and he gets to flush and wave bye bye to his poop. heheheh. If ther'es no poop (there was once or twice where he didn't actually go), then he doesn't get to flush. Nice enough reward right?

His babbling is mixed with tons of different sounds now. He can 'talk' for hours on end. He gets super excited when he sees a chipmunk, squirrel or bird outside the patio door. All of those are "baba". He's starting to make animal sounds too. We ask him what cow sounds like and he goes "mmmmmmmmm". Other animals like cat and bird goes "ack" in a high pitch voice. HE just does the intonation for meow... not really forming the letters with his mouth. But still! And for fish he makes popping sounds wth his mouth. Bunnies and he starts hopping. So I'm so so proud of his animal sound activities.

We also started giving him the tadoodle crayons and he draws lines on his little sketch book. Once in a while he bites the crayons which I hope won't hurt him. Luckily it's non toxic. He dances a lot now too. And even spins around. And oh my gawd.. he can do the moves for itsy bitsy spider. It's hilarious.

The adventures to the park I wrote about in the last blog has been a normal occurance now. In fact, he even goes to a playgroup at the local library and from what the nanny tells me, he's very eager to try new toys and activities. Most of the parents there are in awe apparently. So far he hasn't hit any of the younger babies there so... phew!

What else can I say? He know where his body parts are now too - hair, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, belly button and toes. The only thing is that he refuses to acknowledge the body parts in malay. ughhh.. i go "mata" when he points to my eyes but he'sll say "nya nya" until I say it's "eyes". then he'll stop. Aiyo... gotta start speaking more malay to him.

Anyway I'd better get going but I'll surely try writing again about him soon. Sorry for the long absence!!

Trusting another

Hubs and I have been talking a lot about letting E's nanny take him out for drives and activities. I've wanted him to have activities outside of the house for a while now. But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to let her drive with my baby. What if something happened? What if he got kidnapped? What if an emergency occurred and I wouldn't be able to get home in time to make things right? It's so frightening. At the same time I don't want to coop the nanny up in our house and I want E to thrive and see the outside world. He needs the interaction with other kids and he's so ready to play in playgrounds and visit places instead of just staying in the house. I want him to have a normal perspective of life. Not just coop him up indoors where he's the king of his castle. I can tell he is ready to be introduced to new activities too. He's absorbing so much now it'll be a shame to not show him all the interesting things in life - trees, dogs, books, other children!

And so I had to toughen myself up and let go of the over protectiveness within me. Hubs wasn't very thrilled with the idea. And I think in hindsight I should've gone through the thought process WITH him, rather than talking to him about it once I reached the end of my thought process and decided it'd be good for our little boy to be out and about. He had all the same worries that I had but since I had gone through those worries without him, and before him, I had an answer for all the concerns he brought up. What if something happened to him (it could happen when he's with us too). In the house we can control the factors that influence something going bad or good (yes, but we can't protect him forever). He doesn't need to play with other kids (yes, but look at him when he's out with us - he shows so much interest in the other kids). We can take him to the park ourselves (yeah, well... but only when we get home form work and on the weekend. Shouldn't his playtime be during the day and not just once a week?) And on and on....

I wanted him on board with the idea. I didn't want him to come back and put blame on me if (nauzibillah - touch wood!!!) something did happen to our little boy. We're in this together. It's a parenting decision that we would make together.

I don't plan on handing E over to the nanny and say go ahead and have fun with him. No - there has to be restrictions. We'll go over car seat installation and proper restraint. We'll go over when and how long they're allowed out. We'll go over checking in with me when they do go out. And all the good stuff.

Today I'm working from home and I discussed with hubs that if the weather is good we could let E go out with the nanny on a 'practice run' to the park. The weather looks quite dreary but I'm hoping that it'll get sunny in a bit. We'll go through the checklist of the carseats and safety information in detail. And if they do end up going out, I'll be sending them off with a mountainful of prayers and doa to keep them safe and to ease my worried heart.

Please pray along with me...

Playing hooky

On Friday the nanny took the day off so hubs stayed home from work to watch E (that's the thing about having a nanny - if they take the day off we have to arrange other childcare). Anyhoo... I was planning to work from home so I figured I'd be able to log on at 6am and be done with work by 2:30pm. Of course I couldn't wake up on time. So I ended up logging on at 6:30am instead. But hey, that's still good. Buuuuut we had a problem. I couldn't get connected to the secured office network. Grrrrr.. I was on the phone with help desk and they couldn't figure it out. They sent me to a different group of people to try and fix my problem and at 9am I found out that I would have to come into work to get my laptop fixed. They can't fix it from home. By the time I'd get to work it'd be 10am. I so did not want to drive all the way to the office only leave in 5 hours and to not have my laptop for an hour or so because they'd need to fix my laptop. So I called in to take the day off. And boy was I glad I did.

The weather was awesome - 75 degrees F. And we decided to go to the factory outlet about 40 mins away. The area has a pond with ducks, geese and swans in em so it would be a special outing for E too. We packed up, bought some bread and off we went. I'm telling you - it was SO nice to be out with hubs and E on a WEEKday. On the weekends the public places are always packed and traffic is always high. That Friday was definitely one of the most relaxing days we've spent together as a family. I actually ended up having major gastric pain and could not enjoy the walk around the outlet that much but heck - it was still one of the best days we spent as a family.

E was not very interested in the ducks though. Funny guy... he ended up wanting to eat the bread we bought for the ducks. Plus the ducks weren't very interested in our bread either. Spoilt things that they are - they wanted the food pellets that were stationed around the pond which of course you had to pay for. So we hung out by the bench under the tree next to the lake and just lazed around for a bit. Hubs saw a LOT of kids there and I think he didn't realize that there are a lot of moms who don't work. We've been thinking a lot about me staying home. I'm quite torn on the idea. But I'll write about that in another post.

So Friday we lazed and visited an outlet. Saturday all three of us went to the strollerfit class. It was fun! And hubs got to see how much of a workout I get at those classes. We came home and had a mighty productive day too. hubs mowed the lawn while E was in his stroller. After walking him around a bit he dozed off for his nap and I cleared the garage a little bit. Sorting out junk from non-junk item. And that evening we visited our friends who have a 4 year old and a 15 month old. Fun weekend indeed!

It's Sunday and hubs is at work. And I'm going to clean up the house and make some tandoori chicken and dalca for lunch. We're hoping to hop into the hot tub later this evening (gotta clean it out and fill it up with water of course - we have not used it since we moved into the house). Hoping to end this weekend on a high note. :)

13 months. Seriously?!

Officially a toddler, little E certainly acts like one. He's absorbing everything we're pointing out and naming to him. I can't believe how quickly he picks up on new things. Of course sometimes he forgets the next day, but more often than not he can show you items when you ask him to.

So far he's consistent with showing the light, fan, door, nose, bird and dog. Today I thought him ears and he kept pointing to his ears. How proud I am!

He's extremely comfortable going down from the couch (backwards of course) and the other day we were at a friend's house and he backed down the steps to the basement. I didn't actually count but it was easily 20 steps. He did it like a pro!

His steps are getting more confident and I don't worry too much about him falling over anymore. He's extremely stable and he's even lifting his legs higher too. His new game is to kick his little soccer ball that his uncle bought for him. He's pretty good too! He'll 'dribble' the ball and then pass it on to his papa. When he gets bored using his legs he'll pick the ball up and give it to the nearest person in sight. So sharing his ball seems to be something he's ok with.

He also knows the tune to The Wheels on the Bus and whenever he hears that tune (different toys or me singing) he'll wave his arms round and round. I'm trying to get him to press his nose when we get to the part "The horn on the bus goes beep beep beep". But sometimes he does it, sometimes he doesn't.

He's also loving his new Mr. Potato Head toy. I'm not sure who taught him, but does this thing where he'll take a part of Mr. PH and match that part to the part on your face. So like he'll take the nose, and try to make you hold it on top of your nose. Or he'll take the mustache and try to place it where a mustache would be on your face. Quite hilarious playing with him that way.

He's eating a little bit more now. I went back to chunky pureed food coz MIL kept harping about how he wasn't chewing and it was coming out whole so he wasn't ready. But I'm ready to give him more finger foods again. In fact, just today we had a peanut butter sandwich. I bought this all natural peanut butter from the food store and put in on the dairy free pita bread I bought. Cut it into tiny pieces and off to town he went. Seemed like he really loved it. I might ask the nanny to add some variety to his breakfast menu.

He's also sleeping through the night a lot better now. On some days he still wakes up a lot wanting to nurse throughout the night but for the most part he'll nurse himself to sleep and not wake up till about 4-5am. I feed him then get ready for work. We nurse still when I get back home but he doesn't stay on for very long. He's still taking one 4oz bottle during the day when I'm at work so I think his milk intake is pretty decent.

Speaking of which my supply is going haywire these days. Sigh....

Anyway I'd better get back to the hubs.

Happy 13 month old E!

Homemade bread

Ok, so since all the breads in the store have dairy in them, poor E hasn't had a taste of bread yet. Except for pita bread of course. He likes pita bread broken into bits and pieces. Since he's not too keen on snacking on cheerios anymore, the pita bread is what me and the nanny give to him. But I feel for the guy... I so want him to have bread for breakfast. Not just his boring ole' cereal. And so I got a bread maker. Actually, my friend gave his to me coz his wife never uses it. Apparently she was insulted that anyone would even give her a bread maker since she bakes em from scratch. Anyhoooo..... today I got a chance to get some of the ingredients for a dairy free bread. Here's the recipe.

Ok, just getting the ingredients was an adventure coz I had no idea that yeast has to be refrigerated. So I spent a long time going around and around the health food store that I go to for E's food. After spending way too long getting only a few ingredients, we drove back home and I took the long route home in hopes that E would fall asleep. Lucky me his eyes drifted close as we turned into our housing area. And now he's sleeping in his car seat, in his room.

I'm actually blogging this right next to the bread machine and I can't help peering through the glass top to see what's going on in the pan. I have a wierd feeling I've messed up coz I can see the yeast touching the liquids in the pan and it's starting to bubble. Ugh.... AND I don't think I measured out enough yeast either. There was only enough in the packet for 2teaspoons but I needed 2 1/4 teaspoon. I'm not holding my breath that this will come out good at all. I'm imagining a sunken bread. But hey, maybe if I think really really hard, I can will the bread into something totally magnificent that I might not even need to buy bread from the store anymore! Sometimes I can't believe the amount of bread we go through. But it's the easiest food item to prep for a sweet meal or a savory meal. So bread it is in our home. :)

Ok, wish me luck that this bread turns out ok. I'll try to post pics if I can.


************24 hours later**********************
uuuhh why on earth is the batter not even mixed?!! The machine stopped but nothing happened to the batter! GAH all that ingredients wasted. Gotta try again.

I don't think I put the pan in right. It came loose so the thingy that 'kneads' the ingredients wasn't even moving. *DUH*