The Bub in the Belly

On this occasion, she started sucking on the straws, as if testing to see if anything would happen!


I especially love that she placed a yellow bumble bee on her handiwork. Lovely! I wonder if she imagined the bee among the flowers that she'd planted - hohoho, aren't I being presumptuous here!

In recent weeks, we have noticed babydoll exhibiting a lot more awareness of her routine and what happens around her. She's always been very observant and now that she's mobile, she has the power to make things happen for herself. For example, when we tell her to put her shoes on, she will toddle off to the shoerack to fetch her shoes, and when we tell her to take them off, she will sit down and undo the straps on her shoes.

When she's hungry and I ask her if she'd like something to eat, she will nod and toddle off to the kitchen and point in that direction. When we turn up at her nanny's to fetch her home, she is the first one out the door because she knows it's time to go.

Here she was, shopping last week.


Haha! Love that shot!

She still loves her stacking very much and now we offer her the chance to stack with precision - like fitting rings on a rod.




Babydoll is very sociable and enjoys being with people. She does have moments when she just wants to be with her mama/papa but, generally, she is good with everyone and anyone. Here she was, outside Paragon Shopping Centre last weekend, sitting next to a stranger. This was after she spent ten minutes flirting with diners at a restaurant in the basement - she was standing outside the restaurant and reaching through the partitions to shake hands with the diners inside.

We brought her to the playground at Telok Kurau Lorong J two weekends ago. It was her first time there and she had a great time.




I chuckle everytime I see this photo of her at the bottom of the slide. I love her expression!





Now that babydoll is mobile, I am a little less strict about supervising her. Before this, she was always accompanied. Always. Just like Ryan was. Now, I do leave her in the company of her brother sometimes, while I run upstairs to fetch something or make a dash to the toilet. One morning, I left the two of them in the living room while I went upstairs to do something quickly. When I came back downstairs, all was quiet and my two munchkins were gone! I realised that they had gone to the playroom and, as I approached the playroom, I heard them chatting to each other - Ryan telling his sister about the letters of the alphabet and Rachel going, "Ah!" at the appropriate moments.


Lovely! I am looking forward to seeing them playing together more and more and, hopefully, becoming the best of friends. They do fight - oh boy, do they fight! Babydoll gives as good as she gets so I usually don't intervene except to say, "No pushing" or "Talk nicely". I also say "No fighting" but that only means no physical blows are exchanged - I still let them fight it out otherwise. They usually fight over toys - one of them will be playing with a toy and the other will want the same toy so they end up in a tug of war. And don't think that Rachel is always the one trying to snatch the toy away - Ryan is just as guilty of doing that! Never a dull moment with these two!

Stacking is correlated to your child's level of motor development. It allows your child to use her hands, both alone and in coordination with her eyes, developing more control and precision as she tries new ways to handle items. She also learns spatial concepts like dimensions, weight and relative positions. All this will enhance her ability to explore and learn about the world around her.

I give Rachel quite a lot of stacking opportunities so her stacking ability is excellent. The usual measure (please don't take this too seriously) is that a 15 month old can stack 2 blocks while an 18 month old should be able to stack at least 4 blocks. Rachel, at 13 months old, has already mastered stacking.


Just a few months ago, babydoll was more interested in knocking blocks down, even if I showed her just two blocks stacked on top of each other. Now, she finds great satisfaction in building the structure ... before knocking it down.

As you can see, she is very focused on her task. She will stack all the available blocks around with great concentration - I usually bring out about ten or so for her. I normally offer her blocks but she doesn't discriminate and will stack just about anything that can be stacked. She is still ambidextrous, so she stacks with either hand. I work on other motor activities as well, so babydoll is pretty confident with her hands.

Pom-poms are good to use because you can lay a pom-pom on top of the hole and it will just sit there until your child pushes the pom-pom such that it squeezes through. Your child is naturally encouraged to use his/her fingers. The other advantage of pom-poms is that Rachel doesn't seem inclined to eat them so I don't have to watch her like a hawk when she does this activity. You can also use cotton balls if you want something similar. Having said that, I've used a variety of other items of all sorts of shapes and sizes, it really doesn't matter, actually.



I bought these pom-poms from Spotlight. I think it was S$3 a packet with a good mix of colours and sizes. I bought them in primary colours so that I will be able to re-use them again when Rachel progresses to colours. Rachel doesn't put these in her mouth but if your child is working with small items, please supervise them!

The container is a Munchkin snack container. Please don't bother to buy a container for this. I have used a food container with a small hole cut out on the lid. I have used a toilet paper cardboard roll. I have used our existing toys with holes (see further below). There are countless options. I have even used my finger and thumb to form a circle.

The only reason I used the Munchkin snack container here was so that I had some place to store the pom-poms after she was done. This way, I don't have to clean anything up! When I offer the activity to Rachel, I leave the pom-poms out and the container next to them, on the shelf or on the floor. If she is in the mood for the activity, she will go to the set up and do the activity. After she is done, she will go off.

I may not be with her when she does this activity; I may be with Ryan or she may be with Richard. In any case, as you can see, she is pretty focused and doesn't need me. She also comes up with her own versions of this activity. The shelf where I leave this out has some other toys and stuff, so sometimes I walk up to the area to find the pom-poms all posted into a different vessel!


As mentioned above, Rachel gets a good fine motor workout from picking up and handling the items.



Another version of posting/slotting. This toy comes with a hammer to hammer the pegs down. Here I removed all the pegs and Rachel is slotting the pegs back into the holes. She's pretty good at it already. I bought this toy for Ryan many years ago from a bookstore sale. I think you can get a similar one from IKEA.

This is slightly different because she is not aiming with her fingers, but more with her hand, while holding the peg in the right position firmly with her fingers. Check out her intense concentration!


Combined the pom-poms with the toy for some variety!

On the topic of walking, babydoll has taken a tentative step here and there, unassisted and unsupported. I won't call them her first steps though. Nevertheless, I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that this little imp will be walking independently very very soon.

These drawers are where we keep Ryan's clothes. Ryan used to play with these drawers too, but in a different way. He liked to pull the drawers out and make patterns with them. For example, he would pull out the bottom drawer all the way and the one above that, he would pull it out a little less, and the one above that, a little less still. Or he would make align them all to the same length. He never pulled out the stuff in the drawers, which is more babydoll's objective. There was one time, Ryan pulled out the top few drawers all the way and, as the bottom drawers were shorter, the whole cabinet toppled over on him. I screamed and Richard magically appeared out of nowhere to save the day. Didn't I say he is Superdad?

Suffice to say that Ryan was no longer interested in the drawers after that. He did try once or twice but when we reminded him what happened, he would stop. At that time, Ryan was older than Rachel is now, though. When he was Rachel's age, he was interested only in learning how drawers work - open, close, learn how to keep his fingers safe. It took him two sessions of playing with the drawers, and that was that. He paid no attention to them until he was older.




Why yes, I let her eat off my floor.



Right hand, left hand. Whichever she feels like using.