Happy Birthday, Julian! Julian turns 1 year old today.
The experience of the past 12 months has been truly wonderful. From the time he was born, we saw him learn to smile, turn over, crawl on his tummy, and crawl on his hands and knees. He amused us with his babbling. He made us anxious when it was difficult for him to gain weight and when he started teething. He can now wave his hands and imitate holding a telephone handset. He is now learning to stand unaided and to walk (or stumble :o)).
What makes him excited? Water splashing (from a tap or fountain), balloons, large "flapping" objects over his head (blankets, umbrellas, and large palm fronds).
What makes him "interested"? Books and paper (he seems to like the texture and sound of paper).
We are glad that he has been generally healthy and happy, and that many people have found him cute and "easy to cuddle" :o).
We are especially proud to have presevered in breast-feeding Julian as much as we could. He is on formula milk plus some expressed breast milk while at the babysitter's but is practically fully on breast milk while at home. He also loves his porridge and cereal.
We celebrated his birthday with a chinese sit-down dinner at Sea Palace Restaurant in Taman Pekaka last Saturday night (25 May 2008). We baked him a special banana chocolate chip cake in the shape of a teddy bear for his birthday cake.
Today, Niq, Chui Ying and Gabriel came over after dinner to celebrate Julian's actual birthday :o).
[Julian's Banana Chocolate Chip Teddy Bear Birthday cake]
[Julian at his birthday dinner]
[Julian and Gabriel having fun with party hats]
[Julian going through his birthday presents. He also received some ang pows (red packets)]
From 12-15 May 2008 we were on holiday in Bali together with Papa and Aileen. It was Julian's first trip overseas. He slept a good two hours on the flight but woke up in time to eat his cereal just before landing :-)
Day 1: We were met on arrival by our tour guides, Astrawan and Kedil. After checking in, we were taken for lunch and the rest of the day was at leisure. We walked on the beach in the evening and took Julian for a swim in the hotel swimming pool. We stayed at the Bali Garden Beach Resort in Kuta. The rooms were a little bit old but clean. The pool area was beautiful.
Day 2: We had a full day tour. We were at Batubulan to watch the Barong Dance - depicting a Hindu legend, and did some batik shopping.
[Barong Dance]
We also visited the silver smith's, wood carving centre and art painting centre.
[At the silver smith's]
[A wood carver busy at work]
Besides that we saw a picturesque paddy terrace at Tegalalang. One of the highlights of the tour was Kintamani, where we had buffet lunch at a restaurant overlooking two active volcanos, Gunung Batur and Gunung Agung, and the Batur Lake. The air here is cool.
[Paddy planting on terraces]
[Diners enjoying the view of Gunung Agung and Batur Lake from Kintamani]
Also on the itinerary were: a visit to a small orchard where coffee and cocoa are grown, among other crops; a visit to the Tirtha Empul temple ; and Sanur Beach.
[Sampling some ginger tea, Bali coffee and hot cocoa. The container contains cinnamon powder, for added flavour]
[Balinese children at the Tirtha Empul temple]
We had a lovely seafood dinner at Jimbaran - right on the beach, in candle light. Very romantic :-)
[Candlelight dinner at Jimbaran]
Julian turned 11 months old on Monday (28 April 2008).
At 11 months he doesn't like to be carried much at home, preferring to roam and explore freely and independently. But he doesn't mind being carried when we're out. Probably because he's still busy taking in all the new scenery. He can be quite mischievious - grabbing anything he can get his hands on, or trying to climb onto the sofa, etc. So, both of us are "full time" on the lookout... can be quite tiring.
Julian actually began verbalising "pah-pah" about 3 weeks ago. We have always referred to Bart as "daddy". So, we are definitely sure he is not calling Bart "daddy", yet. He has also verbalised "mah-mah" but we're not sure if he's calling Angie because he's usually crying when he says it, something like "uhm-maaaahhhmm-maaaahhhmm"... more like asking for "mum-mum" (food = milk). *sigh* Still got to wait for the magic words :o).
In addition to the 4 full teeth that he has (2 at the bottom and 2 at the top), another 2 have erupted at the top. So, he's good at nibbling his baby biscuits and crackers.
[Let's do this experiment on the sofa shall we?]
[We'll start by giving the plate a good whack just to prove it's solid]
[Then, we'll bring out the subject - an empty biscuit wrapper, but wait... I think I need a diaper change]
[It's really empty... see?]
[And the empty biscuit wrapper penetrated the solid plate, see?]
