The day I met my baby girl

This is a belated..belated post. Juggling between a full-time job as a homemaker and a part-time job on my biz, spending quality time with hubby and Hayley, I haven’t had time to blog. Oh wells before 2011 comes to a close, I thought I would take a moment to wish my sweet girl a belated happy birthday on my blog (She turned ONE on July)

365 days ago, on 7th July 2010, I met my beautiful baby girl..



Life...never dreamed it would fly by so quickly.



My sweet baby girl, I am so incredibly blessed to have you in my life. I didn't think it was possible to love you more than the day I met you but I do. The love I feel for you is so pure, so breathtaking and it amazes me everyday. It is truly an honor to be your mommy!












Happy 1st Birthday, my sweet girl.

Roll, Fall and Bump

We had our 'baby-fell-off-the-bed episode' last week. I mentioned before that Hayley has been sleeping on our bed since day 1, she is still sleeping with us because she refused to sleep in her baby cot. She sleeps in the middle. Recently, we found out that she has been a tummy sleeper. We would change her sleeping position to the side throughout the night, but each time we checked on her, she is on her tummy, this means, she's been rolling over in her sleep. We have been warned not to have her sleep on our bed, but as parents, we can't bear to leave her crying in her baby cot, all alone. So we gave in.

'Malam ini dalam sejarah'!. We woke up to an awful thump. Needless to say, we were completely freaked out. She was not crying at first, it was only when we yelled and jumped off our bed, rushed to her and held her up she started crying. She sustained a big bump on her forehead and some bruises on her cheeks. We were worried by how quickly the bump appeared. She only cried for about a minute or so. We checked for other bruises and observed her for about half an hour for any symptoms of concussion before we headed off to the ER for a thorough check-up. She seemed to be perfectly fine. She is far more resilient than we ever imagined and in fact, we were more traumatized than her. We felt horribly guilty and still do about it as parents. Learning and exercising 'firm' parenting becomes necessary now. What's your parenting approach? Please feel free to share with us.



~Michele~

Hayley is 1

Hayley turned 1 on 7th July 2011. We had a wonderful party with our family and friends on 9th July 2011. I promise I will share pictures as soon as I have them sorted out. We took about 1000+ shots. Yes, you read correctly, 1000+ pictures of Hayley. There will be a separate post on Hayley’s birthday party (with pictures, of course:)

I am starting to feel like my baby is no longer a baby. She’s all grown up and she has ‘officially’ entered the ‘do it myself’ stage. She no longer needs me to rock her to sleep, I miss how she would fall asleep in my arms after a few lullabies. She no longer needs me to feed her with the bottle as she prefers to hold it herself and last month, she started showing interest in spoon-feeding herself. I think I won’t be wrong to think how quickly infants turn into independent toddlers when they hit this age. All of a sudden, their tiny personality blossoms and they are constantly letting you know their wants, desires as well as their dislikes and frustrations.

Little Hayley will now screech quite loudly when she wants something and it is not going her way, especially when she is sitting in her high chair and she thinks we are taking too long to get her food or she thinks that we have neglected her when we leave her alone in her play area for too long. She will also start looking for things and frown at you when you take them away from her, especially if it's something she really wants and she is not supposed to have it.

At times you can grin at her and say, “Yeah, good job girl” and her face brightens up and she will start squirming and kicking her legs with excitement.

Despite her desire to become independent, she is still exhibiting strong separation anxiety and she hates it whenever I put her in her playpen or play area alone, she will scream and cry. So most of the time I will put her on her playmat with her toys where she could be assured that I’m not out of her sight, while I am in the kitchen. With separation anxiety, she is also exhibiting stranger-anxiety. I am actually ‘happy’ because feeling the attachment of your child is something that makes me as mama feel good. But I reckon this being a natural phase of growing up and soon, she will be a sociable little person.

We have recently started letting her watch cartoons. She loves ‘My Friends, Tigger and Pooh’. This has been on repeat mode for a month now on our player, we have tried Magical Schoolbus, Veggietales and some other educational cartoons, she rejects them all. Well, at least Pooh bear keep her occupied for a little longer so that I could get some work done. However, her cartoon time is limited to 20mins per day, (knowing the negative effects of it for babies her age)

Hayley is a ‘crawler’. It is rather cute to watch this little girl crawl around our house. She’s a slow walker though. She can only walk if we hold her hand.

Everyday Hayley is babbling more and more. I love to stop whatever I am doing just to listen to her. She loves it when we respond to her.

She likes to touch my face when I'm feeding her, I don't know why she does that, but I actually love it, do all babies do this?

Oh, she greets me ‘Mama’ when she sees me and ‘Papa’ when she sees daddy. She has done us proud.

For now, here’s her 12th and 13th month update

Important Milestones: First birthday, greets us mama and papa, spoon-feeding herself cereal, partially potty trained with poo poo


Physical development:
Weight: 9.9kg
Height: 79cm
Teething: She has finally sprout 4 upper teeth and 2 bottom in addition to her 2 natal teeth that were present at the time of birth.
Hair: Growing but looking pretty much 'botak':P

My darling

Breaking the Blog Hiatus

Welcome back me!

As you probably have/haven’t noticed, I have not been doing a good job here, really. Being on blogging hiatus has been quite addicting. I thought I haven’t really left blogging for a long time but I realized it’s been almost 6months since my last update. Sometimes the virtual world would have to take a back seat especially when our real world affairs need all our time and attention.

More updates to follow.

From North to South

Have you ever been told that if you have to move out of your nest, you can make any place work for you? I have been making Malacca work for me for the past 3 weeks. I can't say that I am not adapting well, but Malacca is not my first choice (if I have to move out of Penang,) nor is it my second or even third, really.

Following hubby to a new state for the good of his career is never my dream. I have friends who have left their jobs for just this one reason and I used to ask them if they've ever regretted. I've never had any intention of leaving everything, leaving my home, not just yet. I did it anyway because I know I had to. But no matter how much of an idealist you are, time, in the face of reality, will gradually but surely squash one's idealism because I am now seeing things in ways that I didn’t see or quite understand before, how easily people can settle in, how it would not matter much whether your work is going to be affected because it would still be the same, how it would not matter much even if the new place is so foreign to you that keeps making you think you’re all alone because the fact is, you’re not alone. The fact is, I have my dearest hubby and Hayley right here with me. I like this saying "A place is only as good as the people you know in it" (quoted from the movie 'I am Number Four'). How true.

So here we are, in a place we now call home. I have no idea how long we’re going to be here, (as I'm still holding out for my first choice, hahaha) but we will be here long enough. Long enough for an adventure, perhaps.


Day 1


We were busy unloading our barangs-barangs from the lorry, here's our little girl, just woke up from her nap



"Pa, Ma, why dressed me in batik? are you all done?..I'm bored here"

Day 2



Me and my girl @ the front porch of our house

The rest of our adventurous journey - to be continued

Personal Time

I have completed this post a long time ago somehow it wasn't published. Why? I hope it's not some early signs of aging - forgetfulness that is (this post shall be backdated to March 6th 2011).

I've had my personal time away from my baby for the first time, yes for the FIRST time in 8 months. I just came back from Jay Chou's concert held at Stadium Bukit Jalil Indoor Stadium. I had a blast at the concert even though I was constantly thinking about Hayley. Thanks to my sister-in-law for taking over my duties for 4 long hours. It wasn't certainly not a breeze, huh, but glad to know that Hayley was very comfortable staying in with you. Special thanks to Lai Seng. I haven't seen a man being so patient with a baby, I'm sure Hayley did remind him a lot about baby Geraldine back then :)

Well, Jay's concert was awesome. I have been a fan of Jay for many years now but I have never once been to his concert. So this time around, I thought it would be a good opportunity since we are living downsouth now.

(And for the record, my dear hubby bought me a Concert DVD (live in Taipei) for our wedding anniversary gift. Of all things, Jay Chou DVD? As unromantic as it may sound, I love it, thanks dear :) and probably he realized the inappropriateness of DVD as a gift, he got me my favorite perfume. Cute.)



Ok, back to the concert. The stadium was packed with people and it took us a good 30mins just to enter the hall. When he finally appeared on a 3D light image of himself playing an electric guitar, people were screaming their lungs out. A young pregnant lady who sat right beside me, (she might be into her last trimester looking at the size of her stomach) was screaming like nobody's business and I thought, hey you have a little one in your tummy, you shouldn't be here in the first place)...oh well, some people just don't bother. Anyway, I had this thought that it would be great if Jay turns into an Evangelist singer or something (since he has publicly acknowledged his allegiance to Christ and also, he was seen working with a team of Filipino missionaries and musicians)

Overall it was a quite an experience for me watching a live performance as great as this. Truly a concert where music meets the hearts of people of all ages.

Here's something to remember

Hayley is 6 months old!

On the 7th, Little Miss Hayley turned 6 months old! She's doing so great these days. Everyday she does something different and amusing.



She rolled over from belly to back now, but if she's tired or grouchy, she'll just lay her head down and cry until I pick her up. She'd much rather be sitting or standing with support.

An exciting milestone has arrived, she had her first solid meal yesterday but it didn’t go well. We thought our little girl would open her mouth eagerly and accept this wonderful new experience but this historic first feed turned out to be a mess. She pushed everything out of her mouth, pull a face and look completely offended! I tried feeding her during lunch today, I decided I that should try taking the edge off her appetite by giving her about half her milk feed and then feed him after about an hour or so…I really thought this would work, but she was just too hungry and she ended up screaming in frustration. All she wanted was her bottle of 6oz milk. A lesson learnt. Trying to force a baby to eat is the best way to put her off the whole experience. I will try again in the next few days.

Her first meal
Day 1 – 1 teaspoon of rice cereal, 3oz of milk
Day 2 – 2 teaspoon of rice cereal, 2oz of milk

She's still growing at a good pace. Her head is measuring at 93 percentile. I'd like to blame her dad's side of the family for the big head gene, but unfortunately I had a big head and so did my younger brother, so it's coming from both sides! =D

Hayley started exhibiting some degree of separation anxiety. She is happy when I'm within arm's reach. Whenever I leave the room or away from her bed, she cries and screams..going in for a shower could be a bit of a problem these days let alone leave the house without her. Sometimes I wonder have I made her so clingy but I do know that separation anxiety is a normal and necessary part of development that indicates that things are well with her, plus, it is this kind of attention and affection that creates a special bond between us.

Here's my little lady's stats this month:

Weight: 7.9kg

Height: 70cm (The Paediatrician said she is quite tall for her age..well, like daddy, like daughter?)

Milestones: First Christmas, first food (although it didn’t go too well), sitting up with support; she utters a variation of ma-ma’s, mua’s and mem’s. She will say mama, ma mem and mem-mem when she is hungry.

I'm 6 months going on 7..

Hayley's First Christmas

It took me forever to write this post! I took a hiatus from blogging to enjoy the holidays with my family.

2010 had been the year of firsts for my family. I gave birth to a lovely baby girl. We held her full moon and dedication party, we celebrated daddy’s birthday and our 6th wedding anniversary for the first time with our baby .... and of course, there was Christmas! Hayley’s first Christmas!


Beautifully decorated for Christmas at Straits Quay

We had a blast on Christmas eve with our cg friends and our invited friends. It was more than just a party as we had the opportunity to share the love of Christ with our friends. Christmas is indeed a great evangelism opportunity.

Christmas Cell Harvest at our cg leader's residence

On Christmas day, after Christmas service and lunch with our friends, we spent the whole evening relaxing at the poolside. We pretty much had the poolside area to ourselves. Our little girl was so full of energy. I could not have imagined a better place to be with Hayley and my dear hubby, it was just perfect for a relaxing evening, just spending time together like old times. It’s OK to indulge a craving for French fries and Coke every now and then and so we had McD’s for tea.


Does wearing an oversized cap make you look cute? 'das is...total cuteness :D


daddy's girl


Hayley, Daddy, Mommy, one happy family

After Christmas tea at the poolside, we had a lovely time catching up with my parents over dinner as we talked about Hayley (most of the time) and our lives.

Christmas 2011, one of my quietest but most wonderful Christmas I could have wished for.

Oh yes, she took her first big road trip to Malacca for the New Year holidays. She did so well! She mostly slept and we had minimal fussing. We stopped every 2-3 hrs to give her a break from the bassinet, change her, and feed her.

Travelling with a 6-month old, we did not do much sightseeing but we did loads of shopping (a usual chore for me =D)

Holiday in Malacca


Little Miss Hayley ...shying away from the camera?..or was it because of the mosquito bite on her forehead? =D.


honey, one more with mommy...


she just loves this..


Honey, you're just too young for starbucks coffee....next time, okie?

Holiday in KL

On the way back from Malacca, we stopped by KL and met up with my sister-in-law, Jeannie and family. Thank you to the sweet family for the lovely time spent together.