Riding a Bike

This is a post about Sheraz riding his bike! For record purpose. LOL. (Warning: Some information may be out of date.)

I once posted about Sheraz's tricycle which we bought somewhere early last year (January 2011). He was 16 months old. Here are the snippet photos of the post. 

So we bought him a bike at the end of last year (December 2011) - He was 2 years and 3 months old. We were so proud that he could pedal and steer so well at the first attempt. But note, he only could push the pedal half way round. He just didn't seem to get enough push with one pedal to get the other one back round. Here's a video of how he rode the bike.

He's been riding the bike for about 9 months now. I was just out of idea on how to train him. He didn't listen and I thought that he's just comfortable with the way he pedaled.  AND  guess what, only recently he's able to pedal a full circle! Oh I'm such a proud parent. Now that I don't have to worry. He'll need to practice more so we can consider to take the training wheels off. 

Room Transition

The new LO will arrive soon and we are preparing Sheraz to be a big brother. We need more space especially when the baby arrives. So we decided that Sheraz has to sleep in his own room. 

When he was 6 months old, we moved him to his own nursery. Everything was fine and I did blog about it here. However it lasted only 2 months because of a typical old wives' tale. People just got 'paranoid' to know that a 6-month old boy doesn't co-sleep with the parents. 

We had his cot transitioned to a toddler bed, and it was attached to our bed, side by side. Even though he had his own bed, somehow the three of us always ended up cramped in our queen-size bed. You know it's not comfortable. Furthermore the tiniest among us tends to sleep so oddly! He's active even when he's sleeping. Hitting us and sometimes trying to climb onto us. Then there goes the head-butting or pushing us to one side of the bed. He sleeps everywhere! It's funny that he always gets half of the bed while I and DH have to share the other half.  Imagine if I have to co-sleep with the baby later. Wouldn't it be dangerous or what?

Sheraz's nursery - we moved him here when he was 6 months old

Transitioning the cot to a toddler's bed when he was 18 months old

His Room now

As of today the little boy has been sleeping for three weeks in his own room. We purposely do it now, not later when the baby comes. Because we don't want him to feel left out by letting him go. I and DH bought a new bed for us and recycled the old one for Sheraz. Oh yes I'm so jealous, at the age of 3 he has a queen-size bed. But knowing how active he is when he's sleeping, I think it just suits him. Still attaching the bed rail, on one side of the bed. I'm not a fan of birds that are angry LOL, but our little guy loves them so much, and we coincidentally found a set of of bedding during the Raya sale. When he first saw his room, he was like "Wow!", "Wah!" He just loves it alhamdulillah.

Meet Sheraz's Friend

 A picture taken by Sheraz himself on my iPhone.

Hippie is an orange Hippo which he got as a gift from my Mak G on his first birthday, last year. Since then Hippie has been his loyal friend. He loves H so much that he brings it everywhere all the time. Then imagine how smelly the little friend is. Luckily Sheraz just doesn't mind if the little friend has to go to the washing machine.

Transition to a Toddler Bed

When he exactly turned 18 months old we finally decided it was time for Sheraz to move to his big boy bed! It's his baby cot converted to a toddler bed. He's doing quite well and his sleeping pattern is way so much better. Not to say because of the transition though. For the past three months he's been sleeping through the night. He sleeps around 9 - 10 PM and only wakes up between 5:30 - 7 AM.

He's so excited.

I had to buy a bed rail for him, one side only cause it's against the wall on the other. He was a wild sleeper in his crib. This rail prevents him from falling out of the bed. Guess what, after the transition he somehow becomes less active (while sleeping).

One of the reasons to convert his cot is because he liked to try climbing out of it. Looks like this doesn't solve the issue. Even though he can get down from the end of the bed, he still prefers climbing through the rail. I trained him to get down properly and he did listen. However there're times when he thinks that climbing is still more fun. He doesn't really do it actually for he only wants to make me feel nervous. Well, Sheraz will always be Sheraz.

Transition

Sheraz is 6 months, 1 week and 1 day old

The day Sheraz hit the 6 month mark was the day we moved him to his own room. We have been planning for it and have decided to wait until he is 6 months old.

And so now the time has come. These are few reasons why we want to 'let him go':-

First reason is because he tends to be restless when we're around. I don't want him to hear us and wake him up since we always sleep later than him.

Second is because we want him to get used to it and cultivate this habit. The same as our decision of not letting him sleep in our bed.

Third is because we hope that Sheraz will be more likely to grow into an independent and confident child. As long as he's happy and feel secured, he will not be worried about sleeping alone, as this is what he has come to expect.

Fourth is because we have set his room before he was born. And me, being a neat-freak, like to have his cot to belong to the room because it's cute. (I know I'm a freak)

Fifth is because we need privacy and we need to sleep better too!

Monitor is not included in our budget for the time being. So we keep his and our doors opened. His room is the opposite of ours, right down a very short hallway so I can hear him anytime with my supermom ears.

The first night he woke up 3 times. I guess he was trying to adapt himself to a new ambiance. The second night he settled back into routine, which is waking up once at night and wakes up for the day around 5.30 am. After a few days his sleep routines became little longer. Sometimes I leave him alone in his room, slowly he has started recognizing his room and everything in it. Alhamdulillah he's fine.

Fussy Walker

The other day when I visited Sheraz at his nursery I was surprised to see him moving in the walker. But it's only moving backward. He's not able to move forward yet or control himself to where he should stir. At home, he barely can move in his walker as his feet have not reached the ground properly. The one he has at the nursery is slightly lower. I saw him quite steady, no need to be propped to sit. I told DH about it. DH said it's no wonder the little guy was angry when DH put blanket at his tummy for his sitting support. So fine, now we know he needs no more prop.



Today he was crying so I put him in the walker. I wiped his tears and snotty nose, but he continued crying. So I pulled him up but he screamed, crying and looking at the walker. He screamed even louder as I walked away. So I put him back in it and he smiled excitedly then pressed the music button eagerly and spinned the toys impatiently. When I tried to clear his nose, he was back crying terribly. So now I know that he doesn't like to be disturbed while he's in the walker. I tried to touch him, he started to cry again. So fussy.

'Mandi Pool'

As previously posted, on the topic of swimming baby. Now it's Sheraz turn to try. My sister in-law ordered and we received the stuffs last Friday! I was told few simple rules:

1. Let the baby swim only 45 minutes after feeding (I believe this is to prevent him from having unsettled stomach)
2. The water temperature should be around 35 to 36 degrees Celsius.
3.The baby can swim for not more than 20 minutes.

So we were excited to let Sheraz swim. To comply with the rule #1, after Sheraz's feeding we slowed down a bit, filled in the pool, moreover the volume of water needed was quite plenty. It actually took much longer to get everything done. So by the time things were ready Sheraz wasn't, because the wait made him wanted to nurse again. As the water was already a nice 35 degrees Celsius (as to fulfil the rule #2) we insisted to get Sheraz in before it gets cold. We thought that Sheraz likes to bathe anyway. The first 5 minutes were great, he swam, kicked the pool, splashed and after that he was getting restless. Of course we didn't want to 'abuse' him so he was in the water in much shorter time than we expected. To summarize, rule #3 was unintentionally complied.

The next attempt would be this coming weekend :D *grin of an excited parent*.
p.s. Not only me, the ayah is much excited than the bunda.

Milk Tragedy

Today I forgot to bring along my hand phone. (Though it's not that I didn't use to). Sometimes I leave it on the dining table and most of the time under my pillow. Okay, that's not the point.

So when I reached home in the evening I found a few missed calls, and some text messages. One from DH, mak Yah, a contractor and one from Sheraz's caregiver. The last one frightened me a lot. Since the first day I returned to work, I've been a bit alert of any phone calls, because I'm afraid there might be any emergency call or whatsoever. Since it was only a text message so I thought there shouldn't be anything important. After all Sheraz was already with us.

When I read, I felt sad and hapless. Why? Because they texted that two bottles of Sheraz's milk (my expressed milk) have gone bad. They had thrown them away and wanted me to send over more. I remembered that this morning I gave five bottles of refrigerated milk, two of which contained frozen milk that had been thawed in the fridge. That was frozen milk and there's no way it can be spoiled! And once again I read the part: susu dah dibuang. Suddenly I felt so wretched. Do you know every drop of the milk is so precious? When I was experiencing breastfeeding hard time, I struggled even to get a single drop. When I checked Sheraz's bag I recalled that one bottle of the frozen milk contained 5.5 oz! and the other one was 4. So all together they have wasted 9.5 oz! All of a sudden I burst into tears because I knew the milk shouldn't been spoiled and that Sheraz could have been happier to get those. They could have mistakenly thought that it has spoiled because of the milk separation. Normally it may look spoiled but it's just separation where fat rises to the top.

Well, it was nobody's fault. They are not to blame. Seriously.

I thought they would have known more about handling human milk since there is one of the older babies at the nursery who also consumes only breast milk. (Or probably the mother never gave frozen one.) I should have briefed them though. It was just heartbreaking to have to think about them getting rid of that liquid gold! and I shouldn't have left the hand phone at home in the first place (eventhough by the time they texted me the milk had been discarded). It's all right, not our rezeki. The most important thing is that Sheraz had enough food today. It happened that they still got more of Sheraz's milk - even if I didn't come over to send extra.

Sheraz's lunch bag. Normally I prepare 5 cups / bottles every day.

Swimming Baby

No, I do not mean the Nirvana's album cover.

I mean this:-

Arsyad's so cute. Look at the excited face!

Me want for Sheraz! :p

"I and My Stroller"

"I love going for an outing. Almost every week bunda and ayah bring me jalan-jalan. They say they need to buy groceries. I need to follow them since there's nobody to stay with me at home. yay! They put me in a stroller because they say it's more convenient. I don't like to be laid in it because I can't see much but lightings above me. But I'm happy when ayah lets me stay in a sitting position, that way I feel more comfortable and .. I can start observing lots of things.."

"owh suddenly bunda wants to snap a picture of me. Wait, bunda. Well I'm a bit shy."

"How should I pose? Is this okay? I just don't feel right especially with this hat on. Why does bunda want to cover my head anyway"

"Okay, that's better. Now snap it, bunda. I'm proud of my nearly bald head. That's why Mak Incik calls me 'the little professor'. So now please take me for a walk around."

The Little Commuter

As of today Sheraz has been sent to the nursery for two weeks. The nursery is somewhere near my office. Even though there are few numbers of daycare centres nearby our house, we purposely chose this one so that he would be closer to me. I can easily drop by to visit him and we have more time to spend together. But this means he needs to commute with us everyday.

So we leave home around 7 am each day. Sheraz enjoys being in a moving car. He likes outings so much. So mostIy we don't have problem bringing him with us. I have to send DH first before sending the baby. As I'm driving alone we have to get him in a car seat. Since he's still a baby, his car seat is a rear facing one. At first it was a bit scary for me to actually leave him alone at the rear passenger seat with him facing the back. But alhamdulillah he's been doing okay. We put two little mirrors at different angles in front of him so that we can monitor him through our rear mirror. I'm able to see how and what he's doing all the way. Mostly I can hear his excited voice like woo, haar or brrr. As I said, he's an observer, he likes to look at the window watching the outside. He likes to see the skies, trees or the street lightings 'moving'. When I stop for the red light, he protests. Luckily Kch is a small town, so traffic jam is not that bad. Here take a look at the little like-to-observe-commuter's face..

And this is while he's sleeping

Baby Nursery

MCPD: 37 weeks

That's the almost finished baby's room. The room is ready but it's not ready for the LO to sleep in. There are few things DH want to add in and I need to wash his bedding. To put in the round pendant light and leaf canopy was DH's idea. It's funny if the father-to-be gets involved in preparing the nursery. We put the green sofa bed for the guests. My sister will sleep in this room next month when she comes. Later it's going to be useful for me or DH to sit whenever we want to relax in the nursery, bonding the LO. The baby chair may not be useful until LO's able to sit and eat solids. We have it because it's cheap lol. The chest of drawers is to keep other LO's treasures.

Whenever we are back from the office. I and DH would open this room. DH likes to call LO's name and he seems to be really excited and can't wait to welcome LO. As for me, I like to be in the room while thinking what other things should be prepared and done (back to the nesting instinct), because thinking about having the baby around means thinking about the labour which frightens me a lot.

Baby Cot

MCPD: 26 weeks 2 days

Today, finally after surveying at few different stores, we bought a baby cot! -together with a latex mattress and bedding. Actually we bought a full set to get a save more than $250. The cot is wooden, white in colour, with adjustable mattress base to suit each stage of baby's development and it can be converted to toddler bed. I can say the price is affordable compared to IKEA's as to consider its function and design. So we thought that it's worth it.

On the other word, actually we are excited to shop for the baby with 1001 reasons. And here I would like to mention the word "we" since daddy likes to shop too. I hope LO would love it.

Still in the box. We would like to save a surprise for ourselves until we move in to our house. Can't wait to set a baby's nursery.

First Present from GrandPa and GrandMa

MCPD: 25 weeks

Look at those cute baby clothes my parents bought for the little one. The things are still in Jakarta but I just couldn't wait to see them. So my sister Emma managed to take some pictures. I guess my parents are also stuck to the thought that the baby will be a boy. We can see from the blue patterns. Apart from that, I notice also that my sister put them on the floor which I personally wouldn't do such. But that's not an issue since I will need to wash everything before having him wear all new clothes as there might be chemicals used in making the clothes which could irritate the newborn skin. Anyway, thank you so much to bapak and ibu from us (kakak and Roy) for the gift! My parents also bought the same set for my big brother (read: big= BIG and elder) whose wife happens to be pregnant too. My sister in-law's EDD is October 2009 which is a month after mine. (My parents must be more excited than us to expect their first grandchildren at a time!). What I just heard was that they are also having a baby boy. I can imagine it was quite easy for my parents to buy the same set with the same colour..

Note: While writing this I'm missing everyone back home more *sigh*

LO's Piggy Bank

MCPD: 23 weeks 2 days

Well let's call it a 'penny bank', shall we? We've been collecting coins since last year. The rule is to fill in the bottle with only coins, 5 cents and above. We feed the bottle only if we have coins left, that explains why they only filled a three-quarter of it since last year. It all started because DH keeps coins at home, as you can tell men do not carry purse.

When we knew the little new comer will arrive, we decided to make this giant milk bottle as a gift for the LO. However we haven't decided how the money will be used.. But it should strictly have something to do with the baby's needs-

#1 Either we will use the money to get baby's stuffs

#2 Either we will keep the money for the baby's future benefits

But to look at our current financial condition, the money is most likely to be used for the first option. LOL. Because next we will talk more about baby cot, pot, bibs, stroller, car seat, nappies, more clothes, more nappies and milk. Can't think of other things right now.

So, both DH and I were curious to know how much it has been collected. Will it help to get the cot we've been eyeing?

So now here we are counting each of the coins in rows and columns, expecting big amount.

..and the final total is ... RM 203.00! Well, not too bad.

I guess we just need to save 'harder'. LOL. Forget about making use of the money in the near future. We might consider buying something if the bottle can be another three-quarter filled up :)

Baby's First Clothes

MCPD: 23 weeks 1 day

We went to the store and found the SALE sign for baby stuffs. Though it's still considered early, DH said it's okay to buy some. I love those cute stuffs. So we chose few basic clothes, after all we still have plenty of time to buy few more progressively. Even the doctor mentioned that we're expecting a baby boy, we did think the doctor could be wrong, so we tried to choose unisex clothes though in our mind LO is still a boy. That's why the first two clothes are blue.

It's funny to think that we do have these little clothes in our room while the LO is still on the way. Still can't believe that we're having a baby soon! I touched and looked these cutie lil' clothes so many times. I feel like I can't wait to see the baby.