Our Little Rainbow: Month 6: Happy Father's Day

Wow, it’s hard to believe that Xuan is 6 months old! She’s a happy, chubby baby at this stage. She has the cutest face with the smoothest curve to her cheek. Her lively eyes are so observant and light up at the smallest discovery. Sometimes, she would scrunch up her face (I call it her scrunchy face) and it makes her look so cheeky and impish. H and I find it so amusing when she pumps her chubby arms and legs up and down when she gets excited while her daddy carries her in the Baby Bjorn.

Her hair has grown much longer, and I just love her curls, they give her such an impish look. Everyone we meet is fascinated by the thickness of her hair and her shiny curls. She can’t pull herself into sitting position, but when we prop her up, she would try balance herself and sit up. Her head is still bigger compared to the rest of her body though, so it’s quite easy for her to lose her balance and fall face forward. In fact, she did bump her poor head on the floor of the bedroom. Thank goodness she was ok, just a little bruise on her forehead, not noticeable really, under all her hair!

Xuan loves to listen to music and she likes to watch the vcd of nursery rhymes my sister bought for her. She would wave her arms and legs in time to the music. I can just tell we have a young TV addict in the making.

She loves to put things in her mouth, I have found her biting her fingers, jamming her whole fist in her mouth, nibbling her toes, enthusiastically biting the corner of her pillow, gumming the legs of her caterpillar, happily chewing her fish (it’s kinda smelling fishy at this point), even salivating all over the belt of the car seat! You would think that we never fed her, and she’s on the brink of starvation!

Mmm...this hippo is really yummy...

*nibble nibble*

Fingers are so yummylicious...and convenient too!

My little pony hits just the right spot!

Wow...this caterpillar leg looks delicious...

...gotcha!

During Xuan’s doctor visit this month, he asked us if she has started turning over. He has been asking me this since she was 3 months old. Surely babies do not turnover when they are 3 months old? Anyway, I started feeling a little of the competitive mom anxiety. Thank goodness, Xuan turned over for the first time on dd July 2009! It happened quite suddenly, I walked to the bathroom and when I turned to look, she had turned over from her back to her stomach! So, technically, I didn’t see her turn over, I just saw it after the fact! Way to go, Mom! She did it again that night when I was putting her to sleep, I excitedly called H upstairs to see but Xuan refused to do a repeat performance. Finally, on Sunday night, with me, H, my mom and my sister cheering her on, she turned over and we captured it on video!

This month, H and I also started talking about whether we would send Xuan to daycare or to a babysitter when I start work again. We went to meet the owner of a new daycare center and we were quite happy with the setup and the owner was very friendly.

The advantages of daycare is that there will be more than one person looking after the children. I know very well how tiring it is to take care of a baby, and when there are more people around, at least there will always be another person to help. The daycare owner told us that she would strive to maintain a ratio of one caregiver to three children. The daycare is also equipped with toys and learning stuff for the children, and babyproofed for safety. Another advantage for the daycare is that Xuan would have friends and benefit from the interaction with children. The definitely downside of the daycare is that there is less one on one care, and the potential for her to fall sick because of catching germs from the other children.

We also went to visit a babysitter. This babysitter is caring for another toddler, about one year older than Xuan and looking to take on another baby. The advantages of a babysitter is more one on one care, compared to the daycare. Also, hopefully Xuan would not fall sick so often when there is only one other child. However, if the babysitter fell sick, or wanted to go for a holiday, H or I would have to take leave to take care of Xuan, as there is no backup carer. Another disadvantage is that this babysitter insists that Xuan needs to drink milk from the bottle and sleep in the swing. In the first place, Xuan has refused for months to drink from the bottle. For the second point, it is not recommended for babies to sleep in the swing, it is dangerous unsupervised, as the baby may fall out or crawl out.

H prefers the daycare, so we have decided to go for a 2 day trial at the daycare to see how Xuan likes it there.

This is a video of Xuan having a lovely long chat with Daddy after his long day at work. Would really love to know what she’s telling him! “Mummy is such a sleepy head Daddy, it took me 5 minutes screaming at the top of my lungs this morning before she rolled over and opened one eye! And her KPI for changing my diapers is just not improving, she’s so slow...you really need to have a word with her about that...”