Shopping Fun!

I've come to realized that when babies are 2-3 months old, you can't really tell if they are boy or girl simple by appearance, because mostly they look alike, like boys! Maybe because most have short hairs. But, if you put them in pinkish clothes then it's easy to identify. We try letting Sandra put on a skirt for the first time and see how she looks. Haha... you bet, it looks funny. Just like a baby boy trying to wear a skirt, I think it all comes down to the hair, she might look better with long silky hair.

Sandra is getting use to the stroller already, talk about strollers, I recall one of my friends mentioned he bring his kid out on a trolley. Huh trolley??? Haha anyway it was a mistake from his quick conversation, luckily me, as a new father myself doesn't make such ammusing mistakes often, or maybe in one of my previous or future postings? Ha hah...

Anyway, back to stroller. We bring Sandra to quite a few places recently on her stroller. Compass Point shopping center, IKEA, market in the morning and to checkup etc. She's doing well and seems to really enjoy with comfy in the stroller. I am so relieve that I listened to Caroline and get the more expensive stroller, as it is light weight and amazingly easy to handle, with a few clicks and it can be kept and used without much sweat. It is also extremely stable, it don;t have suspensions but Sandra can sleep all time in it even going around bums and curves. She also kinda like it when you move. She'll make a small fuss when you stop, once you push her around she enjoys it so much that she'll simply look at you and not a single sound! I am so happy for her too when we bring her out, it's a bit tiring and we didn't get to really shop freely, but it's really enjoyable! We used to wonder why people would push the stroller along with their little ones as they can't really shop since the baby needs constant care, plus the stroller is also quite obstructing when trying to get into small areas. Now we know, it's another kind of joy that cannot be experienced without this new precious princess entering into our life, she's the one that puts extra joy to our shopping!

It's also really fun WHO you can meet around with your baby in a stroller at shopping centers. One day Caroline was trying out her clothes at U2 and I waited for her outside, with Sandra that is. In less than half an hour, 6 different groups of people had stopped by and one spoke to me! Students: "Look so cute, eeeee! How old is she?" A family, with a kid and grandma: "See baby! See Baby! Last time you are like that..." A strange man around late 40s "Your first baby? Ohh.. she's really pretty! Congrats and take care. Bye..." Two mid twenties ladies: "You're the Father? Hey she looks like you! hehe...", well thanks ladies, and thanks Sandra too *Grin*.

101 Expressions

Sandra's been really busy practicing her "new expressions" and "new activities". She now express herself so much than than the past 2 months! Previously, you can only see her either close her eyes or just staring at one direction. Now, she have all kinds of cries, laughs, stares, wondering, shock, jerky, lazy, smiles etc.. well, refer to MSN emoticons and you can see most of that, he he... Yes, expressions are part of human emotions. Try making funny noises to her and she stare back with huge open wide eyes. She cries? No problem, just carry her up and she stops immediately, and almost instantly she goes crying again as you put her down. Now, it also means she KNOWS! She KNOWS, but maybe do not UNDERSTAND? Strange but quite true, she wouldn't know this Daddy or Mummy is what kind of alien whom she sees everyday, but soon she'll understand. And when she does, it'll be fun, oh ya and harder to take care of too.

Baby's so chubby that you simply cannot resist to either pinch or kiss her cheeks! So elastic and bouncy! Caroline away's scold me not to kiss her that much as she might grow pimples. But it's so irresistible I just had to do it, ha ha, Caroline kiss her alot too. Sandra's expression is so amusing when you give her a peck, she goes arggggg... turn around and stare back again with a tiny smile. She likes it, I KNOW, too, he he...

Then goes the day's activities, look here look there, watch TV (MTV, Adverts and Mission Impossible 3 trailer was her favorite, she likes cute guys aka Tom Cruise I think). Also staring at the LCD sometimes when we carry her while surfing the net, or Caroline playing Maple Story. She still can't hit the delete keys at the keyboard yet so it's pretty "safe" to carry her while we do our stuffs in front of the computer. We also tried playing children songs for her, we have about 10 CDs all for the baby - Rising Up Music, Meal Time Music, Play time Music etc. These are from one of my clients, I "borrowed *Grin* " them and store them in my comp and play to her, a total of few hundred titles! Anyway, we mixed them up so we sometimes played the Meal Time Music while she about to sleep but it doesn't really matter, she's not very interested and paying attention unlike watching her Favorite MTV Music Videos.

Her cries are getting louder and louder, and she sometime screams too, not "cry and scream" but "calling" "Ah!", "Eh!", short sharp screams, like calling for us to come over. Once we thought she's asleep and she goes "IAK!" and it shook me and Caroline, well, it's a matter of time she does that more often. A good thing is that she now seldom do that uncomfortable eweeee, herrmmm, grrr... shreeee... which she makes during her 1st month at home. She also got frightened by our sneeze, cough and sometimes dropping an item on the floor. A huge thunder roar today really shook her, well, it frightened both of her parents, me and Caroline too :)

Non-stop cleaning

Sandra likes to shower. From my friends I also realized that most babies like shower, or maybe water? Caroline took a few days "lessons" from her mum before she can handle showering for the baby. I don't think i can do it, although she keeps still when bathing but I'm just too afraid I might let accidentally slipped! She feel extremely comfortable and happy after bath, she likes the clean and cool feeling I guess.

Sometimes we found huge mucus which already dried up in the morning, maybe it's milk that she vomited out during the middle of the night which no one cleans for her. Have to "pull" it slowly not to hurt her, she seems ok anyway.

Cutting the little finger nails is also a challenge, it can only be done while she's sound asleep. I can't even hold the nail clipper properly as it is too small for my fat hands, ha ha, men just can't do some things as good. Sandra's saliva is dripping more and more each day, we used almost 5 hankies each day at least, all 80% wet! Sometimes she blow bubbles all around and gave me a fright after not looking at her for sometime while carrying her in my arms, thought she choked! She also have some funny sticky like tears around one of her eyes, her eyes are not red so we assume it's ok, hope it goes off after a while.

Cleaning never stops, so do her saliva...

Dizzy... Noisy...

Today morning i woke up and saw Sandra awake too in bed. Caroline was already preparing breakfast, I get out of bed and take a look at Sandra to check if she had vomited which normally does. I then came to aware that she's starring at me and as I put my hand around her neck she looked at my hand. I walk away towards the door, her eyes followed me like a radar. Her eyes were basically "lock - on" to my position. I move backwards, she followed, and forward, again she followed.

Amused, I try to circle around the room (lucky Caroline was not there or she'll think I sleepwalk), Sandra's head just twisted and turned to look for me.

I recall having a Hanging Mobile, don't know if I got the name correctly as I don't know what it is. You know that funny spinning thingy with stuff toys they put on baby cot and it moves on top of baby's head with music, well, see pics if I've described it stupidly. It was exchanged with vouchers at kiddy palace. We put up when Sandra is about 2 weeks old but it had no effect on her, since at that time she probably can't really focus well with her eyes. I fix it up and let it spin. Ha ha... she followed it round and round. I told Caroline about it and we had a good laugh. Then came some nasty drilling noises from downstairs, they are new tenants whom are renovating, fixing Air-con today and all that drilling. Not sure if every flat owners have neighbors like me, they're not very noisy, but upstairs seems to be living Big Foot which walks a lot after 10pm, and now, downstairs moving in just the time Sandra is born. Anyway, lucky we got that Hanging Mobile spinning on top of Sandra and she's totally involved with it.

Wonder if she gets dizzy after a while so I stopped it...

The Sarong, Stare and "Fish"

It's May Day! Public Holiday and a long weekend!

My Mum, Brother and his entire family (3 kids) came over at our place to see the little Sandra. My nieces and nephew really like her, and Sandra seems to be attracted to the my brother's youngest girl, Mavis. She kept looking at her only, maybe in her mind she wanted to go shopping with her when they both grow up.

The Sarong

Recently Sandra seems to have adjusted herself to the Sarong. We had an automatic one which rocks her for 15 mins or so allowing our arms to relax, and stop it by then she'll be in deep sleep. But we try not to let her sleep too much in the Sarong as it looks very dangerous and seems not very good for the backbone. But some says it's good for the baby's head, making it more rounded? Well, I personally think it's good when the weather is warm, as it swing and also have "holes" cloth. Anyway, almost my entire family including me and my brother grew up :hanging" inside the sarong everyday and we seems to be perfectly fine, so it wouldn't be that bad.

The Stare

Recently I notice Sandra more and more alert, which is good. But that "stare" seems to be more and more frequent. It's a little fierce and that "hey there buddy" stare that's funny. She can give that stare for almost as long as we carry her. And also I manage to capture her awareness of the surrounding even though she's asleep. When she's a sleep, just walk near her and look at her, for a minute or so she knows you're there and wakes up! When you go away and look her from afar, she sleeps back after a while.

The "Fish"

I also manage to capture her "fish" motion when she's hungry with a video camera. I always had a good laugh whenever I saw that. She'll shake her head left and right and her mouth opens looking for the mum's breast to suckle. It is the only time she can move that fast, making shaking about 5-6 times per seconds! I also let Caroline knows she wants to feed by telling her "fish already", imagine someone else heard it they'll wonder what's wrong with this couple, what the "fish"? Hahah...