Wow! I still can't believe it's been 8 months since I've had Luca. They say a baby grows up really fast, especially his first year... but this is toooooo fast! 4 more months and he's gonna be a toddler!
Today, this not so small fellow gave me a 'present'!
Thanks dude... the value of your cot has just dropped by half.
Weight: 8.6kg
These are his current milestones:
- blabbering alot
- sits unsupported
- crawling and rolling so much, and so fast, that on occasions he falls on his face and on the back of his head - the hard knocks of life!
- enjoys pulling himself up to standing in his cot, while being carried, against the wall,... basically whenever he can.
- readily accepts new foods and tastes (for the last 2.5months since he started on semi-solids, these are the foods he's had: white rice cereal, brown rice cereal, sweet potato, pumpkin, carrots, avocado, apples, pears, plums, bananas and baby yogurt!)
- seems to be aware of his surroundings (noticed his cot sheets was different when I changed to fresh ones for him, and he was so used to taking his bath in a white tub that he wailed when we used a red one. hmmm - no good, no good)
- his front 2 teeth has emerged, and I believe he's got the lucky gap as well! just like his papa! hilarious!
Just another messy meal time with this little rascal!
Seems quite unlikely, but some of my good friends now I actually got to know while teaching yoga.
Met up for lunch with two of them at The White Rabbit yesterday. The restaurant recides in an old chapel in the Dempsey area and with the high ceilings and long tables, it felt like we were dining in the great hall of Hogwarts! Whimsical!
Oh! We noticed Luca has pretty expensive tastes! hah hah!
Luca's 1st christmas present (way in advance!) from Aunty Charina! I gave it to him the very next day, since he's got no concept of when Christmas Day is anyway! kek kek!
The news is out. Yes, we'll be relocating. Very soon.
We spent a week in Sweden recently, main purpose was to find an apartment (which we did). And since both of us lived there before, it was really a 'preview' for Luca. We wanted to see how his first flight would be, and also to let him have a taste of autumn before hitting the full-blown winter in January.
So, here's our story.
Luca's first flight... no fun. But it wasn't as bad as we had imagined. We were lucky it was a 1am flight, hence it wasn't too difficult to get him to sleep. And when he was awake, Dave and I took turns to carry him, so one of us could sleep for a awhile. We had to take turns for meals too. And for the first time on a long haul flight... no in-flight movies for us.
Luca's first vacation... wasn't all fun for him either. Temperature was between 5-9 degrees and throughout the whole trip, he suffered from super dry skin on the cheeks and chin, was coughing and had a nose that was all stuffed out to the brim. Plus he had his first case of constipation due to the dry weather and he was possibly alittle dehydrated as well. Top it all off with jetlag... we got a real grumpy baby in our hands!
But we decided we still had to do what we had to do! Apart for house-hunting, we had to introduce some of our favourite places to Luca!
Coffee at Solde.
Carbonara at Spot.
Sushi at Musashi.
Rice paper rolls and pho at Mrs Saigon.
Of course it can't all be about food! We managed to meet up some friends too!... over food!
Dinner with Roger at our hotel's Lean Grill & Bar.
Linda and Nora finally meets Luca.
And Karren whom Luca absolutely adores.
And then there's Isabella, all grown up now!
Although I had quite abit of fun getting re-acquainted with Sweden, I was looking forward to return home to Singapore - for now, I needed to get Luca back to the humidity level he's used to.
The return flight was, in one word, painful. Luca just could not get comfortable in the plane. There wasn't any personal space for this grouchy baby with dry peely skin and blocked nose. I remember I used to get real mad at crying babies on the plane... so I totally understand how we must be the most hated family on board. I had to cuddle Luca for most of the 12 hours back home.
We were all exhausted. We all came back home sick. We all lost weight.
And we have to do this all over again in 2 months time.
Luca is 7 months now and we all spent it together in Sweden!!!
Weight: 8.5kg
Here's what I've been noticing....
- hates sitting without support (and still topples over after at most 1/2minute!); enjoys jumping and be on his feet more
- likes to sit up on the babysitter; no longer enjoys to be in the reclining position
- crawls alittle then lunges forward
- when placed on all fours, likes to lean over to one side to a half-seated position
- on semi-solids (diet now consists of rice cereals, carrots, avocado and apples, all pureed)
- accepts new foods really well; taking at most 3 days to accept a new taste
- can self-soothe most of the times; a (left-)thumb sucker
- his two bottom teeth are out and he's started to bite me during feeding. OUCH!!!!!
Met up with Fredrik and Caroline and the kids for brunch at The Tanglin Tree. It serves really good food, very baby-friendly (although we left Luca at my folks'!!!) and totally laid back! Just what we needed... a perfect lazy Sunday afternoon.
Toys A Month sent Luca his Rainforest Jumperoo 2 days ago. This is one of the latest in the market and it took me all 3 credits for this 1 toy;) It's so fun to be him!
My sis- and brother-in-law are back from China for vacation and we all met up for dinner at The Central's Watami last Saturday.
Coincidentally, it was Mid-Autumn... and Luca's grandpa bought him his first mini lantern!
We were lucky to get a window seat and managed to catch the fireworks on the promenade of Clarke Quay!
Back to lanterns. Lanterns these days are just so amazing. I thought the ones with music are pretty trendy... but check out this (very raw!) video! It's one of the twin's lantern... this bug not only shines, it sings, moves, and flaps its wings!
Last Friday, mama Carol took a day off cus it was Children's Day at the infant care for Ethan. We decided to bring the kids out to the Botanical Gardens.
Had a really nice lunch at Casa Verde although Luca needed to be carried all the time!!!! But I'm used to his 'clingy-ness'... and it wasn't so bad cus he soon fell asleep on my lap!!!
A nice stroll around the gardens after lunch.
Citibank has a service called Globeshopper where one is able to shop at all the US online stores. Especially for stores that do not deliver to Singapore, this is just fantastic! Once you sign up for the service, you'll be assigned a US address. You can then accumulate all your purchases at this address and deliver it back to Singapore in any combination of parcels via DHL. All you need is a Citibank credit card for the shipping from this US address back home.
So last month, I spent alot of my time online. Shopping. It was crazy. There was a 50-75% sale at Gap and Ralph Lauren and the baby apparel were all so gorgeous! And then there was this minimum amount you needed to spend in order to enjoy free shipping to the US address. So of course, I'll buy till I hit the minimum amount! Online shopping is super fun! And since I'm at it, I even decided to get a birthday present for a friend from Ralph Lauren which I then thought, "why not opt for free gift wrapping?"... yipppeee!!! Free is good!
So there I was... happily clicking away. 2 parcels were already delivered to my US address, and after this 3rd parcel, I thought I had better start shipping the stuff back... since this friend's birthday is coming up! And guess what, to my horror... the shipment cost for this parcel is more than the purchase itself!!!! The stuff cost USD205 and the shipment cost USD248. Can you believe this parcel weighed 44kg!??!?! Isn't this like the weight of a super skinny adult!??!!?? And then I realised how very stupid I've been. What was I thinking? Gift wrapping?!?!?!?
So came Monday and my 3 parcels arrived - 2 small, 1 huge.
In the huge box was my friend's really nice BIG gift box, and some of Luca's clothes. Only half of the space was used. Argh.
3 lessons I've learnt:
(1) Never (ever!) opt to gift box any item.
(2) At checkout, request retailer to reduce/remove any plastic sheets and stuffings and compact pack the stuff into the smallest box possible.
(3) Avoid buying bulky items like bags and shoes.
Okay, that was my first globeshopping experience.
It'll be awhile before I start my crazy sprees again.
