Pretend Play: Baking

Monkey see monkey do. Like how the old adage goes, this little busy body wants to take part in whatever I am doing, and that explains why I rarely bring home my work. The other day, when she was deep asleep I sneaked downstairs to prepare tartlets’ crusts. Halfway through, I heard door creaking sound and someone crying out loud. As usual, the boss had let her out to the corridor so that her crying could be heard by me as she has been almost inconsolable and refused to be carried whenever she wakes up and found mommy wasn’t within the radar. LOL.  I quickly got up and carry her with my oily hands and bring her to the dining table, where I worked for my crusts. She was back to her usual self in a split second but insisted to lend me a hand. Only after much coaxing, she willingly gets down to the floor again when I offered her my measuring cups and replace dough with our DIY play dough and happily scooping away. So, this is my little chef at work :P  

One teaspoon followed by another

Put them together and mix well

17 Months

Missy is (1y5m) today. I think this is my first post which is published just in time. I have more than 15 more backdated posts to be composed regarding her monthly milestones. Thankfully, I have saved those remarkable incidences/ events in my handphone all these while but putting them together is a whole new story. 

Weight

Around 9 kilos

Height/Length

Not measured.

Teeth

8 incisors: 4 bottom teeth and 4 upper teeth.

Motor Skills

• Abby is beginning to balance herself and reach for places to “walk” to despite being still a little clumsy and wobbly.  She would held to our hands to take unsupported steps or going across grilled drain at Ah Tai’s.
• She’s quite adept at climbing up the stairs by herself by holding on to the railings (if available) but insists on holding on our hands if stairs are only surrounded by concrete walling.
• Likes to make big splashes in the bath tub and wanted us to pour some ‘bubble bath’ on her tiny palm for her spread it over her body.
• Likes to press the pump (with help) on the baby lotion bottle and spread the lotion all over her legs and arms and is currently obssessed with all sort of bottles with pump head at the drugstore. 
• Likes to move to music and dance.
• Abby can point to several parts of her body, i.e nose, mouth, hands (shakes both her hands), legs (moves her leg) when prompted.
• She can point to the respective person/things correctly when asked; i.e each and every family members, moon (look around for the moon and point if it’s visible), stars (looking up and pointing upwards), piano (where the grand piano at the church is located). 
• Has the strength to carry up to a canister of cookie (approximately 2-3 kg) and her XXL box of Duplo Lego with both hands and canned mushroom (the size of canned condensed milk) single-handedly.  
•  She can distinguish shoes correctly too! She would get her deh-deh’s sandals, my slippers, her grandaunt’s slipper if we are standing by the shoe rack and if she is walking ahead of us.
• Likes wearing shoes. She would pick up her shoes she wanted to wear and bringing it over to me but wails and twist her foot around when she refuses a particular slipper/shoe.
• Loves balls and balloons. She has a myriad collection from ping pong balls, wooden balls, rubber balls, and her latest addition was a yellow soccer ball.   
• She can twirl, run with her soccer ball, bend herself to almost 90 degrees (she picked that up from ‘Six Little Ducks’ video) to go under Ah Tai’s four-legged walking stick.

Communication and Social Skills

• Loves animals especially dogs and cats. She calls dogs “wow-wow” and cats “meo-meo”.
• She is rather friendly by waving ‘hi’ and ‘goodbyes’ willingly to her friends or anyone is she is familiar with but rarely shove her smiles unless prompted.
• She would whispers whenever we ask her to parrot words she is not confident with but saying it clear and concisely when she knows them well.
• Loves to hold on the Samsung TV remote and pretend to change the channels / hand it over to us whenever she got bored with certain music videos (which I downloaded her favourites from Pink Fong & Mothergoose series and tehreafter converted them into SamsungTV mode using Freemake software). 
• Will resist by pulling her legs up when she isnt in the mood of walking.
• Says a few single words which we can decipher: “bear” (for “teddy bear”), “boh” (for “ball”), “deh-deh” (daddy), “mee” (mommy), “po” (for po-po/gu-po) to her grandma and all her immediate and extended grandaunts :P Her grandpa and aunt & uncles are still anticipating for her to call them “gung”, “gu” and “sook”, respectively :P
• To date, she has attended RE classes a couple of times. Despite being underaged (min age of formal attendees are 3yo), she behaves well and I am pleased that she gets along rather well.
• Loves to share. We have been trying to inculcate ‘sharing is caring’ with her since young. She has been generous in sharing off her crayons, toys and foods but still shows slight hesitantance when it comes to her favourite snacks and drinks, i.e Vitagen.

Food and Feeding

• She shows great interest in whatever we are eating/munching and drinking.  
• Her still loves “bob-bob” to bits, hence her diet consist mostly of milk. I am so thankful that she calls her “friends” as “bob-bob” (it took us sometime to rebrand them back then) therefore it is not too obvious especially we are in the public when she is trying to peep at her “friends” and utter “bob-bob” like yesterday night when we were at the church for night service. A slightly elder little girl followed suit and exclaimed "bob-bob" too :P 
• She loves Vitagen (less sugar) to bit and downed her first whole pack (school pack size) chilled Milo when I was trying to coax her while busy baking my tartlets crust the other day.
• We have introduced her to Tasty (among the biscuits we find approvable) and become her new favourite.
• Prefers rice over porridge if given an option. Loves soup, fish and corn very much.

Sleeping Patterns

• Still waking up twice at night to nurse.
• She rolls a lot during her sleep at night.
• Still waking up crying if Mommy is not found within the radar despite with Daddy around.
• She is getting more sensitive to lights these days. She can be woken up easily if the lights in the room are switched on. These days, I have resorted to get myself ready for work in the guest room or study instead. 

Little Vainpot

Little Missy is getting more girly these days, despite her fondness towards all sort of balls & balloons as well as her deh-deh’s Nerf guns collection and PS Vita’s cartridge casings; she still show great affection towards soft toys, all sort of handbags, paper bags that comes with handles so that she could sling that over the arms. These days, she wakes up as early as I do as if she can sense whenever I sneak away from her side and will wake & sit up immediately to make sure I am within the radar. When there’s luck, she would willingly lie down and get back to slumber but most of the time she will cry until I make my appearance and carry her in front of vanity table or mirror while brushing my teeth. 

1y5m20d

This has been our daily routine lately. While we were sitting in front of the vanity table, she would happily check on my stuff while I was at ‘work’ and will be thrilled when I offer her to spread the revitalizer and sunblock evenly on my hand before application. Sometimes, she would steal a dip into my sunblock jar and patting it on my neck. Occasionally, when time permits, I would offer her baby lotion and she would happily help herself to lie down on the floor mattress and wait for her turn to be pampered :). What caught my attention the other day was an extra hair clip worn upside down on her way while she was playing with her stuff while I was clearing the guest room. The little vainpot has made an attempt to clip her own hair :) When I attempted to take her photo, she paused and looked at me at the same time deliberately pushing her head frontwards and buttock backwards. LOL. It seems like I am having a very vain vainpot in making :P

Play Dough

Ever since Missy is getting mobile, she just couldn’t sit still at the church for an hour span of church service or prayer session. Back then, I brought nothing to keep her occupied and get whatever handy on-the-spot to coax her whenever she throws a tantrum. Ever since she can walk unaided, she loves squatting down behind the wooden chair and enjoy herself by merely looking at other older children at play or even finds it fun by just looking at a 5-year old jie-jie who usually sits in front of our row writing on her workbooks. Hence, that moment onwards I started to pack her bag full with toys, stationaries and what-nots (I think all the stuff worth a blog!). My weekly routine started to take a new spin by taking into account what to pack in her bag for Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Monday night services and it has to be something new each time.

That day, I recalled some tutorial on Play Dough DIY I pinned in Pinterest sometime back on my way driving home and quickly made a random google for its recipe and dropped by the bake shop on my way home. The recipe can be easily sought and readily available in most household. As easy as it sounds, I failed my first attempt as the dough was rather dry (same amount of water) and was crumbly whilst my second was a massive success (I think!) In my personal opinion, I think it was in the right consistency and almost similar to the Play-Doh I used to play when I was a kid! :P). I mix the first one manually and second with breadmaker for time saving (and failproofing) :P On a side note, before pouring the hot water, I stirred the hot water with a reasonable amount of red coloring.  

2 cups of flour (I used my old Pau flour)

1 cup of water (I used hot boiling water)

¼ cup of salt

2 tbs of cream of tartar

2 tbs of  oil (I used coconut oil for my second attempt / olive oil for my first)

Food coloring

I left the dough to be kneaded over the night and was delighted to see smooth and glazing dough the next morning. Upon showing that to my girl, she was elated and has been carrying the ziplock bag containing half the portion of the dough everywhere she goes and brought it to MIL’s shop. MIL then spread it out excitedly for her to play on her high chair and even exclaimed “plasticin” to Missy. Seconds after, Missy took a crumb and put it into her mouth. Both my PILs were panic and MIL quickly  shoved away her Play dough and banned her from playing them :P It happened in a split second that I have no opportunity to tell them its actually “edible” (but very salty) and non-poisonous since I was rushing for work :P Anyway, we are still spreading it out for her hands to get dirty at home and looking for more variants and colorful Play Dough, next round would be scented one as I don’t really fancy its coconut-y smell this time :)

Hello Twenty-Sixteen!

Twenty-fifteen has finally dawn and a brand new year is approaching us. Happy new year everyone and may this year be a year full with blessings under His providence, guidance and care. Working life is back to grind and I am secretly looking forward for Chinese New Year. Looking at my 1y4m old girl who is totally hooked towards Chinese New Year songs especially this one and Astro’s Hoyeah advertisement, featuring the cute mischievious monkey. She definately dont mind of putting down everything she is doing and dashed to the TV (or laptop) just to sway and dance along with the rhytms. She has made me feel as exited too despite the fact that I have yet started spring cleaning and foreseeing that I may not have extended holidays for CNY except for the two days of official public holidays this year. 

Dancing along in her pyjamas