The Bub in the Belly

Thank you so much for all the wonderful messages sent my way over yesterday's post. It's so uplifting and reassuring to have good vibes coming at you from the universe. Thank you, thank you.

Shall we go back to talking about the good stuff today? Yes, I think so! Let's do the Rachel updates.

A few significant updates this past week. First one is that babydoll is now preferring to walk instead of crawl. I think it was only two updates ago that she was walking but crawling more. I thought it would take some time to make the transition. As it turned out, it's only been a short while and it's already the other way around. This girl is in a hurry!

Last update on Heguru, I wrote that Rachel had reached a turning point because she started paying attention to the class activities and to the teacher. So for her class last weekend, I was curious to see how she would behave. As it turned out, I had to accompany Ryan elsewhere so Richard took her for class. Anyway, it was good because it was Richard's first time at a Heguru class and I was curious to hear what he thought of it.


Well, according to Richard, Rachel was active but stayed close to him. She was interested in the class activities and generally paid attention. In fact, he said that some of the other students were much more restless. She still ate the crayons though, heh heh.

Richard will be accompanying babydoll for the next few classes as I will need to be with Ryan during that time, so this is going to be her new routine. In any case, as Rachel seems to be at the point where she is shifting her focus to the class activities, we will stick to having the same parent accompany her for now, to minimise distraction.


In other news, Richard and Rachel have reverted to sleeping separately from Ryan and me. Apparently it is a guarantee that, when you put Rachel and me in the same room, she is going to wake up and look for me in the middle of the night. Sigh. So, for everyone's sake, we are a divided family when we sleep. Even as it is now, Richard says that babydoll still wakes up once a night and tries to go up the stairs to find me.

Babydoll is still on breastmilk, although much much less than what Ryan was taking when he was this age as she takes a good variety of solids. The other day we let her have some rice with bak ku teh soup, and she loved it!


In terms of learning and development, babydoll is now very interested in "posting" or slotting items into slots, so I am offering her more opportunities to "post" and I sometimes combine that with an "open and close" activity. For "open and close", she started getting interested when she was about eight or nine months old. I gave her lots of containers with lids to play with and board books to flip. She especially liked (and still likes) to play with the flip cover of my phone - she can flip it open with one finger!

Here's a simple example of a "posting" activity combined with an "open and close" activity which we do - we slot coins into a container with a lid and then we take the lid off and empty it and start again. Simple, simple - and it achieves the purpose.

Slotting activities develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. You can increase the difficulty level as your child grows in experience and expertise. I'll show you in another post how we progressed from the very basic "put this ball in this box" to "slot the coin in the piggybank".


In her interactions with others, babydoll is showing up strong - she stands her ground whenever she is "bullied". For example, if Ryan snatches something from her, she snatches it right back. If Ryan tells her "No!", she yells "Ah!" right back at him. Heh heh. I like it. I like it a lot.


Ok, that's all for now. Growing up fast!

Oh the photos in this post were taken in April. I was waiting for the chance to post them! I love a little girl in a tutu, don't you?