Zara always have pretty regular bowel movement, once a day is the norm, and occasionally alternate days.

I wasn’t alarmed when there was no bowel movement during the weekend, as I thought there may be too much excitement at home (with me looking after her) which caused her to forget to poo. I started worrying when she didn’t have any motion passed by the end of Monday.

On Monday evening, I started helping her.

I helped her by repeating “Mmm Mmmm” “Mmm Mmmm” while with her. When she’s ready, she would stand up from her sitting position, hold on to the table or me, and work on her stomach muscle to try to pass her motion. We could see her face turning red, her clutches getting stronger, and she’s really trying hard. When her facial muscle relaxed, I checked her diaper, no sign of the poo. We tried again, I massaged her tummy, told her she’s a good girl, and she would have to help herself, then the cycle repeated. She would do it for 4, 5 times, trying very hard, complaining after each time by kicking her feet in agitation and then fretted, sometimes, she even have tears in her eyes.

She only managed to successfully release 3 grape size hard stools in total for the whole 5 days; each of her poo attempt more difficult and painful (based on her fretfulness and the amount of tears shed) than the earlier.

Yesterday, when she was asleep, I applied some Yuyi Oil on her tummy, and tried to massage her abdomen, and I found out I could actually feel her bulging colon, all hard and stuffed.

This morning, I quickly brought her to see her PD.

In the waiting room, she was all excited, so many babies and kids around, it’s like she’s in happy land. When it was her turn, she was in good spirit as well, smiling at the Dr and trying to play with the toys on his desk.

After asking a few questions like has her diet changed (which is Yes, since she turned 10mth old, she started having porridge instead of pureed fruits and vegetables for dinner, so she’s short of 1 fruit/vege serving per day now), any blood in the stool, the Dr asked me to lay her down to have her examined.

Zara was cooperative, laid down quietly, looking at the Dr. The Dr could also feel the bulging colon when he pressed on her abdomen. He then proceeded to probe a finger into Zara. This was when Zara started getting upset. She looked at me, asking for help, tears welling in her eyes. I had to just hold her hands and told her she’s a good girl, and the Dr will be finished in a while.

It was found that there’s already very hard stool very close to the anus, so an enema has to be administered. Zara didn’t like it at all, when the Dr stuffed the tablet into her, she started crying. Poor girl, mummy can only hug and kiss and sayang her after Dr was done. He also prescribed some laxative.

When we were back out in the waiting room, the enema started working. Zara’s face turned red, trying force the stool out, she whined and cried all the time. Then I could smell something rotten and knew she succeeded. We took her to the changing room to change her diaper, found lumps of hard stools on the soiled diaper. This can’t be 5 days waste, there must be more inside. Ugh!

Anyway, this is the end of this episode.

From now onwards, we’ll have to make sure she has enough greens and fruits in her diet. I can’t bear to see her kook-si/kek-sai (what’s the equivalent word in English? Just ‘shit’?) like this.

Next few days, there’s still the laxative to feed her, it won’t be fun! L

Since we were at the PD, her weight and height was taken. She’s actually 73.5cm tall, and weighs 7.44Kg. Light for her height and age (almost below lowest percentile curves). Another thing I need to look into.

Here’s a typical bed time routine Zara has:

9:00pm – wiped her hands and her feet, changed her into pajamas, some struggling on her side, not wanting to have the pajamas top and diaper on.
9:05pm – nursed her in bed
9:25pm – finished nursing
she sat up, not wanting to sleep and pointed a stack of books, said “boo! boo!”
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her, put the book aside once done
9:28pm – she took the book, and sat back on my lap (indicating she wants more).
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her again, put the book aside once done
9:30pm – she took the book, and sat back on my lap again.
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her yet again (this time just read the text, no explanation done), she rubbed her eyes midway
9:32pm – laid her down in bed
Daddy walked in.
She sat up again; “Aah!” greeting daddy.
I asked him to tuck her to sleep, while I have my shower.
9:35pm – From the shower, I could hear Zara whining outside, the whining became more and more audible.
Toilet door opened, heard Daddy said, “See, mummy is still around, mummy is taking shower.” He slid open the shower screen, Zara’s little head peeked in.
“Hello, Little girl, what is it now?” I asked, water running down my face.
She gave me a big smile.
“Go, go and sleep” I told her.
Daddy carried her out, and I could hear her whining again.
9:45pm – Finished shower.
Daddy and her sitting on the bed, reading Miss Spider’s Tea Party (!!!)
“I just read that to her like 3 times!” I said
“Oh, I didn’t know” Daddy said. Obviously, he must have just picked up the first available book on the bed to read to her.
Little girl looked at me grinning, 4 teeth showing.
9:50pm – I finished changing.
Took over daddy’s shift, laid in bed with Zara, gave her a breast pad and said “go to sleep now.”
One hand holding the breast pad, thumb in the mouth, she tried to sleep.
I stroke her head and sang some lullaby to her.
9:55pm – She fell asleep.
10:00pm – moved her to her cot, gave her a peck on the cheek, said “good night, mummy loves you”.
She opened her eyes groggily for a second, and then drifted off to slumber land.

Question: Why is it so difficult for daddies to tuck their kids to sleep? Or is it just Zara’s daddy?

Zara has never shaven her hair before, so her hair is the original hair grown since she was conceived (if embroy did have hair), which means, she has very little hair.

We’d taken her for a hair cut when she was 1month +, just before Chinese New Year, as her hair was growing a bit long around the nape of her neck, making carrying her a bit difficult (back then she still couldn’t support her head, so carrying her means puting a hand around her neck, supporting her head and back at the same time).

Yesterday, since I had to go for a haircut anyway, and Zara’s hair is growing like some wild bush, we thought we should trim hers as well.

Being an active child like she is, I thought we’re going to have a tough time sitting her down while the hair dresser gave her a trim. Surprise, Surprise. She sat still, only turned her head a few times to smile at me, or look up to smile at the hair dresser. She had her trim within minutes, and whatever little hair she has looks tidier now.

I do hope that the trim will make her hair grows longer or thicker. The hope costs us RM5, not too bad.

My friend told me if I’m worried that Zara may fall from bed, I might as well teach her how to get down, so she won’t fall any more. I took the advice and for the last 1 week plus, have been teaching Zara how to get down from the bed and sofa.

I had always warned her to ‘stop’ when she reached the edge of the bed, so that part was easy. I then have to tell her to turn her body when she’s reached almost the edge, and guided her body at the same time. Then I told her to go down ‘bum bum first’, held her bottom, and guided it, until her feet reached the ground.

A training session will go something like this :
Put her on the bed
“Zara come down, come to mummy”
She’ll start crawling towards me.
When she’s about to reach the edge, “Stop! Be careful”
She’ll stop
“Now turn your body” guide her body to turn
“Good girl, now bum bum first” guide her buttocks and legs
“Now slowly slide down, be careful”
When her feet reached the floor, I clapped and cheered for her “Clever girl! Hip Hip Hooray!”

A lot of guidance and few close accidents later, she surprised us by perfecting this over the weekend.

Here is a video of her doing this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOOuVMsHRc] 

As for climbing up the bed, I never taught her, but fueled by her own interest, she did it anyway.

Mummy’s birthday yesterday.
Ah Kong, Ah Kim, Samantha che-che, Alicia che-che, Teresa Yi-Yi, Uncle Misai Tan, Daddy, Kakak and I;
We all had dinner with her.

Funny dinner these big people had.
Ate in restaurant, but had to cook their own food
I can see them throwing balls, cubes, vege, green strings into this big pot of boiling water.
Then they sat back and waited.
When a lot of smoke came out from the pot, they used this spoon with net to take out the food, and dipped them into a bowl of something red before putting in their mouth.

I don’t know what those balls, green strings or the red thing in the bowl were .
Because mummy only gave me my porridge
And sometimes she scooped out some cubes of bean curd for me.
My food must be better, because every time mummy put a spoon of porridge in my mouth, she said “Yum Yum”

She let me play with the spoon with net for a while.
Before I could drop it on the floor to see how far the spoon will bounce or what noise it could make
Daddy quickly took away from me and said, “Don’t let her play with that”.

Since I had nothing to play with, I stood up on my chair to see what I can do standing up.
Daddy’s mouth gasped, mummy shouted “No No! Sit down! Sit down!”
Aw, these adults are such party poopers.
They can stand up to play with the big pot of boiling water, but I can’t stand up!

So I decided to scream and shout, and tried to squeeze some tears out from my tear glands.
It must have been a good performance, because people at other tables looked at me in awe
And threw glances at our table

And to reward me, kakak took me outside the restaurant for a walk
After that Teresa Yi Yi took me
And then Daddy’s turn.
Mummy said “You ‘yai yai’ ah!”.
Did she like my performance or not?
My doubts were clear, as mummy later hugged and kissed me and said she loves me.

Happy Birthday Mummy.
Next year when I can walk around, I will perform even better.

PS. By the way, Daddy didn’t wish mummy Happy Birthday, I heard him whispered to mummy some blood very expensive after he saw the bill. I wonder if they had blood just now.

I caught Zara turning around while seated this morning on video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPdUi35X5Y]

Zara loves our cat, Rusty. In fact, 2nd comprehencible word she spoke was Aao, which is the sound that Rusty makes. Cat is Aao (we actually found that she also calls a dog Aao, I think to her, anything furry is an “Aao”).

As she’s still a baby, she doesn’t quite know how to stroke a cat. When she’s stroking Rusty, she gets very ‘geram’ and will actually press on Rusty too hard, or she’ll pull some of his hair out in her excitement.

Rusty is a very timid and shy cat. Even after being with us for 2 years, he’s still very shy with daddy, and only let Tuyam and myself handle him. Because of the way Zara handles him, Rusty is very fearful of Zara Every time the little girl goes near him and goes “Aao!” “Aao!” calling him, he’ll try to run into hiding.
This is one of the rare moments where I got Rusty to stay put so that Zara can pat him, and I try to teach her to be as gentle as possible. Rusty too have to learn how to accept Zara as one of the family members.

Zara has turned 10mth old yesterday. Her month by month development summarised :

Her weight should be somewhere high 7kg (haven’t been to the PD this month).
She’s 72.5cm tall
Still with only 4 teeth

Mobility:
Sitting – new in this area is that she’s able to rotate herself while seated (doing a pirouette sitting)
Crawling – all her crawling starting from this last month was with tummy off the floor. She enjoys the speed she gains by crawling this way
Cruising – Expert cruiser now, she use one hand to support herself, and cruises around confidently, at times running around furniture. She’s able to pull herself up from sitting position (can do it with just 1 hand) and sits back down with confidence.
Walking – Started taking her fist step. The distant she travels from point to point unsupported is getting further
Climbing – Started climbing up stairs and furniture (if her feet can reach the height, she tries it).

Language :
Understanding – getting better in understanding. Able to tell her not to do something dangerous by saying “after pain pain”.
Can understand long phrases and cause and effect, “if you want milk milk, come to mummy”; “you sit down first, then mummy give you biscuit”; “be careful, after you fall down then pain pain”
Reading and listening to songs are still her favourite.
Speaking – started saying words which are comprehensible. See this for her vocabulary.
Singing – sometimes, like a soprano, she’ll be holding her hands, concentrates, and coos for a long minute or two. I think this is her way of singing.

Hands coordination :
Able to put small things into bigger things.
Started giving flying kiss, still trying to perfect the ‘blowing’ of the kiss.
Knows how to give things to others when asked to.
Started showing interest in self feeding, still needs a lot of guidance / practice with handling the spoon

Feeding :
She’s still on 2 solid meals (increased to 4, 5 spoons), and started having porridge as one of the meal. 5 feeds of breast milk, and snacks on a few piecess of biscuits a day.

Preferences :
Able to display her preferences better.
She loves mummy most (that’s what I think).
At reading time, she’s able to choose a book from a pile, normally picking out her favourite book (which changes frequently).

Emotions :
Shakes her head to say “NO” (when given too much food, or when asked to give a kiss but she doesn’t want to).
Very good in ‘scolding’ people if she’s unhappy, say “AIK” loud and then stare at the person (if her favourite toy is being pried from her hand).
Lately, started having this fake laugh, use it whenever she’s trying to give the impression that she’s enjoying someone’s company.
Gives kisses to her favourite people right on the lips.

She’s still a happy and healthy baby.

Moon cake festival came and went. I’m quite impressed with some of the celebration some mums had for their little ones.

Baby Faythe had a good time as mummy really took the effort to prepare see here

Baby Ethylyn had a nice lantern to play with and went for lantern parade see here

What did Zara’s mummy do? **shame**

We don’t normally celebrate such ??? (festival) unless it’s instigated by my eldest sis. This year, since bro & sis-in-law were holidaying in Portugal, and youngest sis was busy with her cafe, eldest sis didn’t organise anything special. However, since this is Zara’s first year, we thought we’ll just get her a lantern, and see if we could bring her some place with lantern show.

Alas, as usual, daddy dilly dally till quite late before we left the house to do lantern shopping. We only have 30mins to shop until our dinner appointment.

We searched for it around Sunway, and managed to find this Chinese medicine shop selling battery operated ones. Zara was sleeping in the car, so we didn’t get her to choose it. After getting the shop owner to show us the few left (it was Saturday, 1 day to the big day, and there was only ~10 left), and ‘demo-ed’ 2 of the short listed ones to see what things the lantern could do (the simple ones are no longer available). One is lantern shaped, with about 5 birds popping out of the lantern, another is a Chinese lion, which turned its head, and walked a few steps when it’s turned on. The lantern shape one is nicer, but very heavy, Zara will not be able to lift it with her small hands. So we chose the latter.

When we were at the restaurant, we took the lantern out for Zara. She was ok with it, gave us a smile and wanted to touch it. Then we turned it on. ??? (Wong Fei Hoong) music started playing, the lion’s eyes flashing red, and its head wobbled left and right. Zara’s started showing some fear, she backed away a bit. When the head wobbling stopped and the lion started walking towards her, she cried! Big tears rolling down. I tried to console and comfort her, and told her there’s nothing to be afraid off, took her hand to touch it. She pulled back her hand, stared at the frightful creature, and more tears rolled down.

We have to put the lion away. **shame**

What about lantern viewing?

It was already time for Zara to go to bed when we finished dinner (~10pm), too late to bring Zara to ???(Tien Hou Temple) to see the lantern show (we assumed there was one there). So, we went back home. **another shame**

As for the lion, after letting Zara see the funnier side of the lion, like the pom poms on its tail and whiskers, and the funny gait the lion has when it’s walking, she’s no longer afraid of it. Still careful when we turned it on, but not afraid any more.

Next year, when Zara can walk and carry her own lantern, we’ll try to be more prepared, and have a better celebration with her. I promise no more shame!

We had dinner tonight with some friends at a Thai Restaurant with Zara.

Zara had her home cooked porridge, while we indulged in the chili laden fare. When dessert was served (water chestnut in coconut milk), one of our friends was carrying Zara on his lap. Our friend just spooned some ice cold coconut milk into Zara’s mouth, and Daddy cautioned his friend, “she can’t take any of THAT!”.

Our friend, looking innocently, asked, “What’s wrong with this?”. Daddy proceeded in telling his friend that Zara is still young, and should not be given unboiled coconut milk (not to mentioned the sugar content in the coconut milk). His friend said we are just too careful, and declared that his girl friend’s nephew is already having Secret Recipe Cheesecake, and he’s one month younger than Zara.

Cheesecake at 9months old? The sugar content in the cake, the possibility of uncooked egg in the cake, what about additive and colouring? Nah, I won’t think of giving such thing to Zara at this age. Of course I didn’t say this out loud, but just said “We have to be careful of what she eats, just in case she may be allergic to certain food and may get tummy upset”.

His friend proceeded to tell us that the boy ate 1/2 a slice of the cheesecake and he is ok. I could only add to say that different people have different parenting style, and for us, this is not ok.

It’s true, different people have their own way of caring for their child, and they have their own Dos and Don’ts in terms of what the child can eat and cannot. For us, in terms of caring for Zara, we follow our child care books, Baby Centre etc etc, which is more of a Western approach. It may not be the best way, but this is the way we know how to care for her, and the method is not baseless.