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