milestone moments madness

initially, i plan to write arwen's milestone moments as it happens. but she's growing up too quickly that i can't keep up. next best thing is, compile it and post it up one shot. so here are some of the neatest milestone moments since the last one in no particular order.

1. yesterday, the babysitter told my mom that arwen's drypers has been dry since 2pm. she has been signaling everytime she wants too pee, so the babysitter has been taking her to the toilet. the thing is, at the babysitter's, she is taught to squat down to pee but in our house, we teach her to pee on the toilet bowl with the potty training seat cover thing. so she gets confuse, although she knows that the toilet bowl is for peeing. (i sometimes pee in front of her - one to show her that the toilet is for peeing, and two, because she wants to follow me into the toilet. if you have a problem with that, get over yourself, please. does your kid tells you that he/she wants to pee all by himself / herself at 17+ months old? yeah, exactly)
   
   
2. she used to be okay with medicines. the most easy kid i've known who's perfectly comfortable with taking medicines. we didn't have to wrestle her or anything before. but last weekend, it was the first time that we had to chase after her and held her tight and forced the medicines into her mouth.
   
   
3. vocab wise ... a lot of new words. and she picks up fast. i have actually set up a twitter account for her speech development that i update almost on a daily basis. ArwenLanguage
   
   
4. her aunt nisha bought her a disney princess perfume and whenever we're getting ready to go out (always get her ready first), she'll ask for a spray of her perfume. a total diva in the making here.
   
   
5. last sunday, her Papangah bought her a new dress. she tried in on and did her little prance and poses in front of the mirror, walking around and going back to the mirror to check herself out. vainpot, she is. she's really vain that she'd only wear the Koolfever pack when we assure her that it's the latest fashion and that she's really pretty wearing it.
   i dont know where she got it. i'm the least vain person in the world. seriously, i'm so frumpy, oprah herself would die to give me a makeover.
   
   
6. she's quite a little screamer. last night we were in One Utama and i think the entire new wing heard her scream because we did not let her run free to roam about into random shoe shops. going out with her has become quite a challenge. i dont know if we can handle more than one kid at a time at this rate.
   
   
7. oh, she can count up to three. and she can already recognize up to the letter D. she also knows Z because in sesame street, they will always put A and Z next to each other. whenever she sees a word, on signboards or billboards or headlines on a magazine or whatever, she'll start pointing and spelling. "A" "O" "P" "I" "B" "O" "Chi" she'll go. sesame street has done good by me when i was growing up. i can count up to 10 in spanish when i was in primary school, all because of sesame street. and i'll continue to depend on sesame street for my kid's basic home education too. the only drawback is that she's a little obsessed with Elmo. the first thing she asks for whenever she wakes up, in whatever hour in the night or day, she'll ask for Elmo (ammo) and then only for milk (mok).
   
   
8. she knows what she wants. even when the sesame street dvd is playing, she'll request certain songs - for Sing a Song, she'll ask "Nak La La La La La, Mamma, Pihh"). For Ernie's "Do De Rubber Duck", she'll go "duck! duck!). (for Beyonce's Single Ladies in the car, she'll go "deddi, Oh Oh Oh!" When she's feeling a little dark, she'll ask for "Ammo Jatuh" over and over again. and if the particular skit is not the one that she wants or likes to watch, she'll tell us "Nanak!" "Nanak!" until we get to the skit that she wants to watch.

so yeah, probably nothing much, and sometimes, it's a little too much for me to handle. but im proud of these little milestones development nevertheless.

arwen on communication

this morning, after my mom has already bathe and was about to dress arwen, she wanted to poop. so my mom carried her and rushed to the toilet but missed it and there was a smelly mess just a few centimeters shy of the toilet bowl.

arwen saw her mess and pointed to it, saying "eeee!". and then my mom washed her in the shower while i cleaned up the shit from the floor. basically i had to roll up my jeans and wash the toilet in my work clothes.

there were bubbles of course, from the cleaning liquid, so she exclaimed "Bubba!" "Bubba!" as she got excited to see so many bubbles. and then when my mom wanted to carry her out of the bathroom, she said "Nanak! Bubba!" (tak nak! bubbles!). when i rinsed of the bubbles and swipe the floor off clean, she said "Dah bis, bubba!" (dah habis, the bubbles).

she's talking! she's talking! at 16+ months, my daughter can string words to make sense yo!

milestone moment : arwen pretends that her pits smell

Download:

FLVMP43GP

sorry for the shitty quality recording. if you can't see clearly what she's doing, then use your imagination, hah!

milestone moment = saying thank you

i'm so proud that Arwen's able to say 'thank you' now. although hers sound more like "tattoo", i'm still very proud. next word we're trying to get her to say and practice is "Please". so far she'll randomly say "peace".

milestone moment : having her own wishlist

a few days ago, a mothercare brochure came to the house, displaying some wonderful things for sale. arwen carried it around with her all the time, because she likes to look at photos of babies. but i realized that she wasn't really looking at the babies, but instead, going through a catalog of toys.

so i asked her, which one does she want among all of those toys, and she pointed at the play tea set. i thought it was just random, like when she points at food when she 'reads' menus at the restaurants. so after a while, i asked her again, and she still points at the play tea set. so i flip the brochure upside down, and asked her again. and then i asked her 10 more times. and asked my husband, mom and falie to ask her the same thing. we all got the same answer. she wants the play tea set. i can't believe that my daughter can already tell and be adamant about what she wants. at only 14 months, old she's already so grown up!



yesterday, i (with ayis, papa and falie) distinctly heard arwen said 'welcome' when i said 'thank you' to her for sharing the murukku she's been eating.

ok, maybe that one's just random.

milestone moment : getting ready for potty?

i think perhaps arwen's ready to pee or poop in the jamban. lately, she's been signaling that she wants her diaper off by trying to pull it down herself and patting her, you know what. maybe she can already tell that she feels that she wants to pee. apparently according to our babysitter Su, arwen wants her diaper off and once it's off, Su will take her to the toilet and she'll continue peeing. she can actually control and hold her pee alrealy. good huh? but this new-found habit is slowly breaking our bank. we're changing fresh diapers everytime she pees. and we're using the expensive pull-up pants kind. tsk.

milestone moment : knowing what is trash and throwing them in the bin

arwen already knows what trash cans are and whenever she sees one directly or in books, or a bag of garbage, she'll immediately recognize them and will pinch her nose to signify 'busuk'. (she also pinches her nose upon seeing dirty shoes).

this morning though, she did something that made me all gleaming with pride. she peeled off a gift card from one of my mom's birthday presents and played with it. and then i told her to put it back where she found it. so she did accordingly, trying to paste the card back onto the gift. but the adhesive had worn off so the thing kept dropping off no matter how many times she tried. i just sat back and observed, waiting and watching what she'll do next. perhaps out of frustration, or maybe she'd figured that the card is now useless, she crumpled it and walked towards the trash bin, opened the lid and threw it in.

i've never taught her how to do that. i mean, yeah there are open dustbins around the house and we have taught her to throw stuff into them, random stuff she picks from off the floor, but fact that she knows what to do when things no longer serve their purpose is amazing.

oh by the way, my joy these days is whenever i say 'hi, sayang' to her when she wakes up, she'll reply me with 'mama!' like as if she's really glad that i'm the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes. with her, love is redefined, everyday.

milestone moment : she likes her meds

not exactly a milestone moment. i just realized that i havent posted this arwen fact yet. it's one of the things that i love most about arwen. i just have to write this, you know, in case i forget to tell her about it later in life. or might never get to.

i always hear (and see) how parents have to manhandle their kids to make them take their meds. i am fortunate that arwen's willing take hers. she's not scared to see the syringes with multicoloured liquids, she doesnt run or shake her head away when i say the word 'ubat', unlike other kids. she parts her lips willingly and swallow the terrible tasting concoctions, only occasionally making faces.

i hope this lasts coz i would hate to chase around the house after her armed with a syringe in my hand, dripping thick bittersweet things all over the floor.

milestone moment : waking mama up

every morning, arwen would wake up first before me. i love the extra minutes of shut eye before i really wake up for the day and luckily, arwen is already big enough now to know how to occupy her time while i sleep in for that few extra minutes. she'll open and unload the stuff from our drawers, play with her toys, poop, climb on and off the bed, sit on my (or husband's) face with her poop-soiled diaper, hide my glasses or the remote control .. things like that. but when she's had enough of that, she'll scream to get me (or ayis) to wake up.

over the months, i have learned to phase out on her screams and cries and whines, especially in the morning. but, in true evolution fashion, she's learned to come up with more ingenious ways to wake us up when screaming no longer works. before this, she'll tap on our faces - in other word, slap us or shake us till we say something. but we manage to sleep through that. and then, last friday, she's learned to peel open my eyes herself. like, manually pinching my eyelids and prying them open. PAIN.

and today, when manual eye-prying no longer works (because i'll shut my eyes even harder), she pulled my hair and/or neck till my head lifts up.

she's getting so smart i don't think i'm able to keep up with her. next thing you know, she'll correct me when i mess up on facts and simple trivia. next thing you know, she'll be the one schooling me. and i often worry about the future when my daughter would ask me to go through her math homework and i don't understand any of it.

milestone moments : a collective of

ok, enough drama and trauma. on a lighter, Yay! note, here's a collection of arwen's latest milestones. i know that all kids develop differently, at their own rate but i can't help but be proud that some of arwen's milestones are advance for her age. that's how all moms are i guess. i think there's a new label for such moms - 'brag hags'. i don't mind labels. i won't even budge if you call me a bitch.

where was i? oh yeah. arwen.

1. arwen likes to walk backwards. something that 15 months old will start doing (according to babycenter).
2. she can drink from a cup. and hold her own vitagen and juice boxes.
3. she knows where and how to look for her vitagen and yogurt in the fridge.
   
4. she's practicing using utensils and prefers feeding herself. i hate it because she makes a lot of mess.
   
5. she likes to 'help' around with chores. last weekend, she tried to take the mop from me while i was mopping the floor.
   
6. she's a cupboard and drawers specialist now. there's no drawers or cupboards in the house she hasn't opened. i'm pretty sure she'll try to open a safe if we put one in front of her. and we haven't started that phase of childproofing the house. trying to train her that such things are prohibited.
   
7. she has started scribbling. we bought her one of those magnetic drawing board thingamajig so she can scribble away. her Omanyang (the babysitter) is teaching her Alib-Ba-Ta with that.
   
8. we're (more like mom, really coz i don't have the patience) trying to toilet-train her without the plastic potty. straight to the toilet, just like mom did to us by the time we turned one. apparently, all 3 of us were out of diapers by the time we were 2. hopefully arwen's following that legacy.
   
9. she's still not talking, but she is quite a storyteller - kinda like a pre-historic human trying to tell a story using sign language and gestures and grunting noises kind of way. yes, i just called my daughter a neanderthal. i guess it's just basic human communication. she's able to tell a whole story in mime. she'd tap on the floor, and then her head to say that she'd hurt her head if it hits the floor. or point at a pair of shoes or garbage bags and then pinch her nose to say that those things are smelly.
10. she's starting to play pretend. she'd take an empty bottle and pretend it's bottle of lotion, where she'd 'pour' the contents out onto her hands and lather on herself, or me. or she'd play with plate / container and spoon and pretend to feed herself, or me. or she'd take any piece of clothing in the clean laundry pile, and put it over her head and pretend that she's wearing something pretty - underwear included.
11. if she farts, she'll laugh at herself. even some grownups dont have the ability to laugh at themselves.
    
12. she can sortta 'jump'.
    
13. she will, up to her mood, pick her own choice of attire for the day.
    
14. she likes bags. any type of bags, she'd carry them on her shoulders and be very mak datin.
15. her nap time is only once a day now. but at least, she sleeps for a long time at night. she'll sleep from between 9-11pm to 6 am (she only wakes up for milk) and then goes back to sleep till 8-9 am.
    
16. she's quite fussy about food - she doesnt like fish or beef with rice and likes chicken soup or chicken anything (very much like her mom)
17. also like her mom, according to my brother, when she chooses not to listen, she will phase out and not listen.
    
18. she can't stop climbing.
    
19. she loves to dance to beyonce's single ladies. (i'll try to get a video of her dancing)
20. she knows her nursery rhymes. she has this book and whenever she turns to the specific page she knows what they are - like she'd shout Baa Baa when it's Ba Ba Black Sheep. she'd 'twinkle' her fingers when it's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. she'd do the 'jazz hands' when i sing Itsy Bitsy Spider.
    
21. she knows the difference between pictures and letters.
    
22. she knows how to change the channels on the Astro remote.
    
23. she knows how to switch off the tv.

milestone moments : 'helping out' with the chores, trying to dress herself up and understanding passive words

random note : i accidentally posted this particular post up on my show the love blog. that's why i don't recommend managing multiple blogs. you're bound to do silly mistakes like that.  

arwen's proving to be such a busy little bee, trying to help out with chores and all the other stuff. it's really great that she could be asked to do things now, like getting me the remote control, or throwing things into the dustbin, and picking up stuff. but she's also really great at making a mess. like, when i am folding clothes, she'll help me unfold them and she'll pick up the clean unfolded laundry, carry them away from their heap and lay them about in every room, table, sofa, bed on the top floor of our house. that's her idea of helping me with the laundry i guess.

and when i am wiping the floor, she'll pick up a cloth or tissue paper and imitate me wiping. so cute. and when i am sweeping, she'll pick up her fake felt flower and do a sweeping motion with it. so adorable i want to squeeze her till she goes blue. and she's also helping my mom with baking at home. she'll usually pick up cornflakes boxes and stack them up so she can sit on them. she also has been seen to put her small hands in the mitten (that reaches up to her shoulders) and carry it to and from the kitchen to the front door.

and yesterday, her daddy asked her to give her bottle to me because we're getting ready to go out and i was preparing her diaper bag. instead of giving the bottle to me, she proactively put the bottle into the bag and tried to carry the bag out. all of that, without being asked. and she just turned one! such a big helper, she is. makes me want her to grow up even quicker so i can get her to take over some of my chores, yeah!

for a couple of weeks now, she's been trying to put on her own diaper, pants and clothes. she'll pick up any item of clothing from her laundry basket, and will try to put them onto her person in the cutest way possible, sometimes even result to a little fall and bump. she has also been picking up her own clothes to wear after her shower. whichever closest to grab, but it's the effort that counts. next thing i know, she'll be picking up her own clothes at the stores and us picking up the tabs. oh hell, i can't wait!

on vocabulary, she's not talking yet. only some words will randomly escape her mouth. Aryanna and Banana sounds so much alike - Anana. which is why we're calling her Aryanna Banana now. She'll say mama or papa or aba but not really directed at us. it's just out of the blue so my previous posts about how excited i was that my baby is talking were premature. it's just a mom thing - expecting the best from their child.  but passive vocabulary skills are increasing ten folds.

she knows exactly what stuff are when we ask her, like her favourite stuffed monkey (which she can't sleep without) and Elmo, and ball, and baloon, and elephants (dulu it was jaja, now it sounds more like gada), she knows books when we tell her to get it so we can read to her (she'll grab a book and will properly prop her butt inside the nook of our folded legs without being asked to). she'll knock on the fridge door if she wants her calci-yum or vitagen. she'll knock on doors if she wants to get in a room. she knows how to wake up PapaIz (usually slapping his face and throwing slobbery kisses on him or pulling his hair and so far she's the only one successful in waking my brother up without ever raising voices and throwing a fit).

she'll do her little dance when we tell her to dance. she dances when she hear all sorts of music - be it from MTV, the radio, my singing, tv open credits, jingles on commercials, even the ting-tongs of the grandfather clock at home. she'll sortta jump when we tell her to. she'll say 'booooo' when asked how a cow sounds like, and 'eeekkk' when asked how dolphins sound like, and 'baaaa' when asked how a goat sounds like. dolphins, yo! she knows how to play peekaboo now. and recognizes Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, the whole cast of My Friends Tigger and Pooh, Thomas the train, Dibo, and Barney.  and when she hears that 'think. think. think' song from My Friends Tigger and Pooh, she'll tap on her head (to think).

she knows all parts of the face and body, including teeth and toes. when asked if she's pooping, she'll tap her own butt. she can smile on command now too. her favourite facial expression nowadays will be the 'gasp!' which includes a prefect little 'O' mouth, which she'll show every time she hears something weird, like somebody nailing the wall, or the fireworks, or her dad's farts.

milestone moment : entertaining herself and more

one of the best parts of my day lately is when i just reached home after work when i am sortta busy running around trying to squeeze time to shower, put on my comfy tshirt and shorts, clean up arwen's bottles and whatever, and in between all that, trying to get arwen to go to her dad instead of following my butt, and stop picking up things and putting them in her mouth. all in just 10 minutes.

it's a pretty hectic 10 minutes but i love it because i still get to have my me time (i tend to take longer showers now because that's about the only me time i can get nowadays) and sharing it with arwen at the same time. i love it more now because arwen has learn to keep herself preoccupied playing with random things, which means that she doesnt have to cling onto me while i try to put on my panties.

like yesterday, she was with her dad in the room while i took my shower and when i (finally) finished and got back into the room to dress, arwen was ecstatic to see me like as if i left her for weeks. but instead of wanting me to hold her and carry her around in my towel, she let me get dress while she kept busy picking up things off the floor (toys, clothes, door wedges, etc) and slotting them in between the panels of her cot like as if she's inserting things in her imaginary pigeon holes.

i realize that she takes a lot after her papangah's characters, like always putting things where they don't belong or in other words, hiding them - it was falie's thing to do when he was little and whenever mom or dad couldnt find things, there's only one person they'd ask. all those while i thought falie had super powers like supersonic eyes and/or probably is a psychic. turns out it's because he hid them heh.

arwen is also really stubborn sometimes. i'm stubborn, but i give in ultimately. my brother though, is a different kind of stubborn. he rebels. when we were little, he did some stubborn thing that got my mom so mad that she intentionally locked him outside and you know what he did? he vandalized my mom's potted plants. i see that kind of stubborn in arwen. because when we tell her off not to do something, she'll rebel by throwing things on the floor. i know, not a good behavior. but what can i say, since even before she was born, she has her own mind.

she's very very curious. always pointing at things and asking 'eh?' 'eh?' 'eh?' until she's satisfied with the answers. (and she's not even talking yet!). falie was a curious kid too. he was 5 when he asked my mom (who was pregnant with faiz then) how does the baby come out?

she loves books. she'll read books to herself turning and turning pages after pages. not that much into toys, but give her a book and she'll leave you alone for a while (or not because of her incessant quest for explanations). she loves going into bookstores. she once ransacked the whole rack of picture books at Borders and even climbed up the racks to get to more books. she even knows how to place her butt properly in between the nook of my folded legs (while holding on to a book) to get me to read to her.

she's a fast learner (very unlike me). teach her once and she'll be able to do it. have i told you that she can make a dolphin sound? yes, takde main dogs and cats sounds, terus belajar dolphin. 

i'm just glad she's not taking much of my characteristics. i'll teach her plenty, and she'll learn a lot from me. but i just hope that all my bad vibes wont brush off on her. but as they say, a baby is like a blank canvas ... (i don't know what's the end to that saying but it's something like that)

milestone moment : walking (on video)

finally, i was able to capture her walking steadily on video. notice how she's sortta dancing while walking? she's got groove, this little lady.

milestone moment : monkey see, monkey do

arwen's picking up so fast it scares me sometimes. she would just observe the things we do one time and would try to imitate it. i guess i'd better stop scratching my crotch in front of her from now onwards before she thinks it's acceptable habit to be doing in front of strangers.

last night, around magrib, my mom went into the bathroom to take her wuduk and arwen, now able to walk confidently, wanted me to follow her into the bathroom to watch what mama was doing. so we did. and then we followed my mom into her room where she spread her sejadah and put on her telekung. arwen stood back and watched diligently. and then she sat down next to the sejadah. suddenly she picked up her hands and put them on her ears and then her tummy. she was practically doing the takbiratul-ihram. she does that sometimes whenever we hear the azan.

arwen protested when i was about to take her out of the room so that my mom can pray peacefully when she said that it's okay for arwen to be there because she wont be a bother. and my mom started her solat. suddenly, arwen walked in front of mom, stood on the sejadah and bent down to kiss the floor.

i'm almost 30 pun liat nak sembahyang! and there, my daughter barely even one, has learned the beauty of a sujud. MALU LAH WEH!

milestone moment : trying to put on socks

this video was taken just last night. arwen suddenly took a sock from her 'to-the-babysitter's!' bag and tried putting it on her foot. we've never taught her to do this. well, not directly anyway. i was impressed to see that she knows what she was holding was a sock let alone know where the thing goes.

HUGEST milestone moment : WALKING WOOOHHOO!

Arwen made it through 5 steps last night. FIVE! that's like 5 meters in babyland. i don't think she realized that she was walking though because she was busy trying to bite off the snout of her plush panda when she was walking. but she did walk! and time literally just stopped for me.

although she still prefers to crawl and she does crawling very well, but now with this new-found mobility, she doesn't like to be carried that much. good thing too, because she's getting heavier, almost 10kg i think. and i can't carry her for a long time.

milestone moment(s)

yesterday, arwen had her first taste of durian, and she likes it. so if she grows up and turns into this diva who suddenly can't stand the smell of durian, i will hold this against her.

and yesterday, she's been doing her 1-2 step quite frequently. she's been sortta 'walking' for a couple of months now, only managing about a couple or three steps once in a while, but yesterday, she's been doing it for more than 10 times. i think she's building up the confidence to really walk. i think she'll probably walk sometime this week. i better get ready the fireworks, also a harness. i still cannot believe that the simple task of walking takes this much effort (and falling).

milestone moment : pointing

a week after the fall and she's still unfolding many more skills. sounds like i'm wishing she's falling more, doesn't it? bad mom. Anyway, yet another new thing brought to you by Arwen would be her ability to point at things. so cool communicating with her now. she tells you when she doesnt want things and she'll show you what she wants. it's so interactive. now, my mom is trying to get her to point to her butt when she feels like pooping.

milestone moment(s)

A question for you, Moms Who've Had Their Child(ren) Fallen Off The Bed, did your baby suddenly became a genius a few days after he/she fell? because it seems like Arwen has unfolded some pretty wonderful skills since she'd fallen off my aunt's 1m-high bed in JB last saturday. so far she has mastered whistling. seriously, do you know any 9 month olds who can whistle?

she's learned to shake her head from side to side, sometimes rather vigorously, to say 'No, Thank You!'. she'll shake her head to every question we throw at her. example : "Arwen, nak mandi?" *shakes head* "Arwen, come, finish your food" *shakes head* "(at the babysitter's) Arwen, jom kita balik." *shakes head* "Arwen, you want milk?" *shakes head* "Arwen, come give me a kiss" *shakes head*. *i feed her baby food* *shakes head* *i feed her my fries* *opens mouth willingly*. it's like she's found her voice through this. like she's telling me that she is her own person and she has the rights to say no when she doesn't want something. it's like she's all grown up already. *now i'm shaking my own head*

she also does this cute little dance (i've yet to record) where she'll stand, shakes her body a bit and her head from side to side.

falling is an important part of growing up, i read somewhere. it makes babies learn through experience. it is true, because after the fall, Arwen's figured out that she'd be better sliding off the mattress / bed / sofa using her legs than her head. i guess it's also true what my mom says, even if it doesnt make any logic whatsoever "dia jatuh sebab nak pandai".

yeah, go ahead, shake your heads.

milestone moment

beginning yesterday, arwen has been able to geleng kepala from side to side to signal that she's had enough. body language is a prelude to actual language, i think?

so far, vocab-wise, she's able to recognize some passive languages already, especially the words cat, lampu, kipas/fan, tv, flowers, pokok, monkey, paula the polar, panda, duck, mandi, tido/sleep, air, milk, fish, blanket, bus, dog, bird, tree, baby, car, come here, head, toes, YAY!, clap, angkat tangan, arwen.. sakitlah mama sayang oi, and a few others. she's yet to point at those stuff though. she'd just turn and glance at some of the said subjects when we ask her to look. except for water, because when she wants some water, she'll crawl towards her water bottle, grab it and hold it to us to help unlid it.