Julian turned 7 month old yesterday (28 December 2007). We weighed ourselves on our bathroom weighing scale while carrying and while not carrying him to estimate his weight. Horrors! He's only roughly 7.5kg. We agree that this is not the best way to weigh a baby but we really wonder why he's not gaining weight well. Anyway, there's no appointment at the clinic this month. So, we'll have to wait until he's 8 months old to know his actual weight.
We believe he has been feeding well, at least until he's satisfied and does not want anymore milk (about 5 1/2 to 6oz), cereal or porridge. He's currently taking 1 "chinese" bowl of cereal for lunch and 1 bowl of porridge at tea time.
We still face the every-night challenge of putting Julian to bed (no, we don't put him "to sleep"). He's into the habit of being carried to sleep, sometimes with much fuss and crying. So, we have tired pairs of hands. Please excuse us if we refuse to help you carry heavy loads.
On the plus side, Julian can now sit unaided for longer periods now, sometimes even with his hands off the ground.
[Wobble wobble... easy does it...]
[Daddy, I'm tired... please can you put the camera away and carry me?]
Angie and I love to travel. When we plan for our holidays, we often use the Internet to do our research for places of interest, accommodation and transportation. So, sites like Hotel Reservations would certainly be helpful. This site allows you to view various options for hotels, flights, cars, vacation rentals and vacation packages. The surprising thing is that their coverage is pretty wide, i.e. covering most major cities worldwide. For a “one-stop” website like Hotel Reservations, I think the prices quoted are reasonable. Must remember to check this site when we plan for our next holiday :o).
This post is sponsored.
Last weekend, we noticed that Julian has started to "commando" crawl. We got to be more alert now because he can get from one end of the mattress to the other end very quickly.
[The Commando Wannabe: We don't think so... he'll be smiling non-stop at the enemies]
He has also started to "half sit" with the help of his hands.
[Let me sit properly and we'll have a game of mahjong, okay?]
Auntie WY would recognise the outfit Julian is wearing :o).
One of Julian's favourite pose currently is his aerobics pose. He does this to balance himself when he is just about to turn over from his tummy to his back.
[Julian the Fonda]
We were given a baby full-moon pack last weekend. We could not finish everything and so, we stored a couple of red hard-boiled eggs and a few "ang koos" in the freezer.
This evening, we decided to reheat the red hard-boiled eggs for dinner by steaming them in the rice cooker as the rice was cooking. Bad mistake...
[Pink Rice... *blush*]
Julian started having some rashes since last weekend (1 December 2007). It's quite bad on his cheeks while his nappy area had just a little bit. This is his first time meeting Uncle Rashes.
We don't quite know the cause. It's unlikely due to the solid food he's been taking because he's just taking rice cereal, and porridge with carrots and potatoes. Other possible causes - the "heat" (insufficient fluid intake with the solids?), or receiving too many kisses! :o).
Anyway, it seems to be subsiding a bit today.
[Rashes, rashes go away!]
[Julian with "bedak sejuk" (cooling rice powder) on his face]
Julian is 6 months old this week (28 November 2007). He didn't put on as much weight as we had hoped he would. He weighed in at 7.3kg with clothes and diaper off. He weighed 7.2kg at 5 months but with clothes and diaper on. So, we estimated he only put on about 200gm over the past month. We will need to be more aggressive in feeding him his solids.
His weight "scare" aside, he is active and inquisitive. He has started to grab our spectacles and pull our hair when we carry him. He is also getting more and more "wriggly" and difficult to pin down when we want to change his clothes or diaper. He has also resorted to making other strange noises - one which we find very disturbing is a throaty vomitting sound (especially when he is on his tummy).
Last weekend, we took Julian to the apartment pool.
[Brrr: Mummy... it's cccold...]
[My Legs! Where are they?!]
Julian is now 3 days shy of turning 6 months old.
Currently he seems to enjoy some "supported" standing (for just a second or two only of course) and loves to suck his toe (a contortionist in the making?).
[I'm Still Standing: Hee hee... Mummy! Hee hee... it tickles!]
[Delicious!: I recall a primary school friend singing "sungguh sedap sehingga menjilat kaki" (it's leg-licking good)]
Since starting him on the occasional rice cereal, we have noticed that his stool has started to have some lumpy bits and is now thicker. And good grief... the smell is horrible!
Last Friday (9 November 2007), we had dinner at Chikuma, a Japanese restaurant at Gembira Parade, Greenlane. It was our belated birthday treat for Niq. It was our second visit there, the first time being just the night before with some friends from Catholic Engaged Encounter Penang.
They serve a wide variety of Japanese set meals as well as a la carte at very reasonable prices. Most of their set meals come with tofu and clam soup, steamed egg with mushroom, and watermelon slices. For this visit, Angie and I ordered the unadon set (RM17.80), yaki tori set (RM13.80), lidako (spicy baby octopus) (RM9.00), and California maki (RM7.00). Delicious!
[Julian studying the menu: He said, "I-oh will-loh have-foh breast-toh milk-koh"]
[Unadon Set]
[Yaki Tori Set]
[Lidako]
[California Maki]
On the way out, we asked the staff what "Chikuma" meant. It means "long-time friends" or something to that effect. Apparently, the proprietors are childhood friends.
On Tuesday (6 November 2007), Julian had his first taste of solid food. Our baby sitter gave him a little bit of mashed potatoes and carrots in the evening. Later that night, we prepared some very fine plain rice porridge.
[Julian's First Porridge]
It's 12.20am, 8 November 2007. Tonight Julian is up unusually late - ushering in Deepavali. At around midnight, he saw his first of several fireworks displays from our balcony. He seemed fascinated seeing the bursts of lights. His reaction to all the loud booms? He burst into fits of laughter!
He got so excited, he's wide awake even now (12.30am)...
[Boom Boom Ha Ha Ha...]
Julian sleeps with us on our bed because this facilitates breast feeding during the night. We find that all three of us get more sleep this way.
A few nights ago after being awakened during one of Julian's feeds, Bart started talking to Julian in his semi-conscious state. This was what he said:
"You know-ah Julian, Malaysia has the highest control tower... airport..."
"Julian-ah, there's something else Daddy want to tell you okay? You know the [mobile telco service provider] yellow man-ah? They say they'll follow you everywhere... you think can-ah?"
End of "transmission"... do you follow?
You may already realise that we are now Posties for PayPerPost. Our post on the air ambulance service was our first post. It has since been approved and we are just waiting to get paid... *money eyes* *blink blink*
We learnt about PayPerPost from reading other blogger friends' sponsored posts. It sounded like an interesting business model. After hearing that they earn money in the process, we kinda got "itchy". "Why not give it a try", we thought. After all, we've got nothing to loose right? We still have our day-jobs. Earning some extra while indulging in our blogging hobby only makes it more fun.
What's so great about PayPerPost?
- It's fun! Some posting opportunities are real interesting eye openers.
- It allows you to be creative! It puts you in the shoes of the advertising people. It gives you the experience of writing catchy ads.
- You get paid! In US Dollars mind you :o)
When you sign up for PayPerPost, you can respond to "opportunities" (topics/products/services) provided by the sponsors. When you see an opportunity that you can write about and you like the amount being offered, you then make a reservation. After writing your blog post about the opportunity and submitting details about your post, the post then enters an evaluation phase. When your post is approved, then it's good news because after a stipulated time period, you get paid :o). Easy!
What are we going to do with the money? Well, we don't expect to be millionaires but a few US Dollars *convert, convert* goes a long way to pay for a nice fancy dinner once in a while, or to buy clothes and toys for Julian. Yes, the fact that it's "extra" money makes it fun!
We don't know if we'll ever go PayPerPost Direct. This is another mode where we get to determine the price a sponsor has to pay us for writing. Hmm... we'll see how our regular posting goes first :o).
Some weeks back (3 October 2007) I found the opportunity to indulge in another baking project. This time it was a carrot cake. I was quite surprised at how simple it was to make. The cake was successful but it got 'downgraded' as a result of my experiment with the topping. Thought I would skip the regular cream cheese topping and try a lemon icing glace since we had a lemon lying around. Bad idea. Or maybe I poured in too much lemon juice. We ended up eating carrot cake with vitamin C!
Baking is a luxury these days... so is blogging.
[Vitamin C-rich carrot cake]
We had an ant problem in our bedroom last week which saw ants coming from 2 or 3 different nests zooming in on Julian's milk-stained linen. They were even all over a rosary we placed on our bed - talk about "holy ants". We slept in the living room for 2 nights.
The solution? We bought a small sachet of ant poison from the mini market and we sprinkled the granules (they looked like biscuit crumbs) at three or four locations where the ants were running around.
The ants seem to love those granules. They don't die immediately though. Something happens to them after half a day or so. The ants never returned to finish off the rest of the crumbs.
[The ants enjoying their last meal]
By the way, Lucia blogged about Malam Bangsa Malaysia which will be held in Penang. For details, please visit this link.
