Happy Birthday Malaysia

Malaysia celebrates its independence on the 31st of August 2009. Mrs Kong celebrates this momentous event with a sleep in as Mr Kong will be home to feed JW his breakfast! Everyone is happy. :)

Happy Birthday Malaysia!!

ps - Mr Kong is wondering when Mrs Kong turned into a psychic?

The verdict on Potty training at 13 months?

Yes, we are indeed a little too young.

Nice try anyway, mummy.

Are we too young to start the potty training process?

Of late, Mrs Kong has noticed a pattern in JW's peeing. Of course it happens when the diaper is on, but it also happens, quite consistently, in a few minutes after the diaper is taken off, when we are either in our bathtub, or standing next to the water basin, playing with our bath toys. Mrs Kong notices because Mrs Kong cleans up before proceeding with the bath!

So this is an idea: can we start the potty training process now? (though JW will miss out on wearing cute cloth diapers... ) Can JW sit still in his new potty, and not try to chew at it like he did 2 months ago when we first got it?

We shall see what happens at bath time tonight.

Feeding at 12 months

JW has mostly been an enthusiastic eater. He has been willing to try new tastes, and up till a month ago, had his favourites when it comes to food. But just after his first birthday, we did notice a change in his behaviour: with increased fussiness, unwillingness to sleep, and distraction when it came to meal times.

Now, a month on, JW has taken to refusing his solids, sometimes going without a meal (or 2) and just drinking milk. At first, (and still to some extent) this raised alarm bells in Mrs Kong's mind. After all, isn't a well fed child demonstrative of good parenting? And what about all the time and resources to put the food on the table? It is certainly a waste of money and good food. Shouldn't we just feed it to JW anyway, after all, he is only a baby and we are acting in his best interest?

Yes, it is all too tempting to force feed JW at times like this: a thought that has crossed Mrs Kong's mind. However, after consulting several well recommended books on baby care and child rearing, this quite clearly isn't a simple solution for the reasons below:

It is believed that force feeding can lead to unhealthy eating habits as it teaches the child to ignore his own bodily signals - and to continue eating when he is indeed full. Further more, the right to decide whether he is full has been named as a component of a child's physical integrity, not too dissimilar from the right to be free of physical abuse. This is alleged to have far reaching implications to a child's emotional and psychological well being.

Hence we are now faced with the question: do we (a) force feed JW and ensure that he gets 3 square meals a day (assuming we are able to do this?); or (b) do we let JW decide for himself if he is indeed hungry and wants to eat, but waste all that food AND let him skip meals?

The latter choice is still too troubling for Mummy, but it might be the better course of action just to let him be.

[As long as he does not lose weight. ... !]

This is how much JW had for lunch yesterday... just the bit on the bottom left ..

Thankfully, JW had some broccoli and orange. The remainder fell into his "little pouch"

Of course, there could be other, more sinister reasons for JW's refusal of some of his meals. It could mean allergies for one, but we are not certain of this yet. Reading up on allergies at the moment, and hopefully we won't find anything serious.

Meanwhile, Mr Kong and Mrs Kong have now taken on DBKL like roles. We get rid of the wastage from JW's meals - Mr Kong being in charge of liquid disposals (milk in particular) while Mrs Kong is responsible for the solid disposals (all other foods not containing milk)! Lets see who puts on more weight from these new parenting duties!

12 months and 3 weeks we are!

Latest developments for our 12 month and 2 week old

We have been experiencing some pretty "interesting" behavior from our little guy of late. Interesting because it is in a way expected (as you would expect your growing child), although its also not exactly what we had expected to happen.

First on our list is refusal of solids. Ever since we started on Enfagrow (formula for 1 - 3 year olds) JW has been saying no to solids a little more than he used to. It is strange, but we suspect its because he is now not so hungry after the heavy milk feeds.

More so, JW is now a little bored of his mashed food, and ready for chunkier, non mashed varieties. He is no longer wanting scraped apple, but rather, wanting to bite at the apple himself. Same for the kiwis. JW now grabs the kiwi from Mrs Kong's hands to shove it into his own mouth. JW is not the only one learning at mealtimes these days.

Secondly, with increased awareness of all around him, he is able to identify sequences in the day, and knows what to expect from our behaviour.

For instance, at bedtime which Mr Kong usually deals with, JW will now know that Mrs Kong's leaving the room means that bedtime is looming close. If he is not ready for bed, he will protest and cry when this happens.

Yes, one might say that he has always been more aware of whats to come but now, its just harder to distract him.

We have also been seeing better sleep patterns from JW of late (touch wood!); with us seeing him sleeping for longer stretches of time. (I hope I don't jinx this by blogging about it!!) Unfortunately, he still prefers having us around, though we do understand this too... it is pretty lonely in his room without us and we miss him just as much ;)

Having said all the above, JW is now so much more of a little boy than just the little tyke we had under our roof 2 weeks ago. He is into copying our actions (holding the second Wii remote and pointing it to the TV while Mrs Kong tried to work the first one), pointing and identifying objects around the house like "fan", "doorbell, "(toy) zebra", "piano", and "joining" in on conversations with his baby babble (e.g. pointing at the lamp and going "ph ph ph").

It is just too cute most of the time, and we can't help but talk about him especially when he is tucked under those sheets at night in his bedroom.

We could go on and on with regards to what JW can do now, but suffice to say that what he is capable of takes us by surprise each day. Mrs Kong suspects that this will be the norm rather than the exception from now on.

And we are back from Singapore

We had a good time in Singapore even though it was more of a working holiday for Mr and Mrs Kong. With JW's curiosity level on the rise, he just wants to be everywhere now, with protests if he does not get his way. Without a car seat, a simple ride in a taxi feels like a mini work out in the gym for Mrs Kong.

Needless to say, JW just did not sit still this time in the plane. Thank goodness it was only a 50 min plane ride.

Having said all that, it was so much more fun seeing JW interact with people around him and smile so much. He is becoming less of our baby and turning more into our little boy everyday. It is truly an amazing experience - to be able to witness all this first hand.

Glad to say we survived yet another trip out of the country... with JW being the most relaxed, and pampered. :)

Baby Friendly Singapore?

Just three days to our trip to SG, Mrs Kong is now trying to google "baby friendly Singapore" just to make life a little easier. Sadly, this baby friendly Singapore does not seem to exist .. at least online anyway.

Will this be another Hong Kong experience? Will we find a cubby hole in a shopping centre parading as a baby room?

stay tuned...