Moments before this photo, she went “ahhh” as she saw the snow falling softly outside

Week 68:

• Jan 7: This morning, as I was brushing my teeth and washing my face and she was in the bathroom as usual playing with random objects, she found my travel toiletries bag and asked me to open it.  Her way of “asking” us to do things is to go “uhhh” like grunting.  I opened it for her and she found one of my compact hair brushes.  I told her that it is for hair brushing.  She immediately knew to comb it through the back of her head without me having to show it to her.  Where did she learn this?!  And how did she pick it up so quickly?!
• As of last week even, she’s been calling us by name with intention.  Previously, she could say “mama” and “baba” clearly but now it is clear that she is calling us.  She has such a small cute voice.
• Using the sleep sack for her naptop routine is the best.  When I put it on her (she didn’t really protest today) and then put her in her crib with her little stuffed dol, she knew that it was naptime.  She didn’t give me a stink eye today either XD.  She fell asleep within 5 minutes by laying down, clutching her doll/chewing it.  Yay!
• On the topic of sleep, she always likes to curl up and sleep on her stomach with her legs tucked in.  She looks like a turtle from the view of the Nanit camera 😂.
• Since she prefers to sleep on her stomach, I read about other parents who would put the diaper on their babies backwards so that the back part of the diaper absorbs more of their pee.  We tried this the other day but found she had a leak instead.  Back to the original way — not like she had had leaks that way anyway, but I wanted to try it.
• Last night, I was reading the English/Chinese book to her about fruits.  When I got to “apple”, she actually said “apple” so well!  She said “ap po” — close enough!  Wow, so impressed.  She was also able to say “na na” for “banana” and something that sounded like “chan” for Cantonese “orange”.  When we got to “strawberry”, she pointed to the strawberry plushie that we have in the living room.  Very, very impressive!  Do most 15.5 month old babies know this much usually?
• Jan 12:  It has been such a tiring exhausting week.  I’ve been mentally exhausted by the prospects of our upcoming move and sorting items and cleaning and organizing.  I continue to declutter even though the motivation wasn’t there, but I’m spurred on by the fact that I know I need to get rid of more stuff — I don’t want to move certain things to the new house if I know I’m not using it anyway so might as well give it away/sell it on FBM now.  I’m slashing my prices for certain items that have been posted for too long or giving them away entirely.  Transactions on FBM have also been stressing and tiring me out.  I have had at least four or five people in the past couple of weeks who either flaked or postponed on coming to buy/take items because they were sick or something got in the way.  I hate it so much.  How can someone “forget” to come when they asked about the item in the evening and they said they were going to come after work?  It’s too bad people are so flaky because I really want more items gone and out of the house.  So many people have been sick with a cold too — COVID-19 perhaps?  Bb has been so clingy this week and mostly wants to cling to me only.  She comes to me and hugs my knees and looks up at me and wants me to hold her and then sometimes to bring her to the basement to play.  If I don’t comply, she continues to hug and follow me and then sometimes cries.  It’s really tiring.  I also haven’t been sleeping early enough again. Oh, and our neighbours have been playing loud bass-heavy music again at night which is disturbing and gives me anxiety when trying to fall asleep at night 😠😠😠.  We have less than 17 days left in this house so we’re just going to suck it up.  Sigh.
• Speaking of being tired, DH is completely wiped out these days.  Bb has been waking up every two hours at night.  We are not alone either.  Other parents with a child born in September 2020 (15 to 16 month-olds) have also been complaining on the Facebook groups about how their child not sleeping well at all these nights.  Glad we are not alone.  It must be a leap or a phase?!  Our child has only slept for six hours once during her entire existence so far.  Even her younger 3-month-old cousin sleeps from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.!
• She is learning by leaps and bounds this week in terms of vocabulary.  I can’t even count how many words and phrases she knows now.  You know how parents can decipher their toddler’s gibberish?  I can do that now.  I can make out 90% of the things she says.  She says it in her own toddler speak.  It like today when we were playing with the exersaucer in the basement and I was singing the “Twinkle twinkle little star” song to her (playing with it again after storing it down there for months), she started to say “tee kle” or some kind of thing that sounded like “twinkle”.  It was impressive that she picked it up after only a few repetitions.  Toddlers learn so quickly.
• Today, when holding her, she pointed at my face and said “pim po”.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was only the other day that I told her that I had a pimple on my cheek and she actually remembered it and today she pointed it out to me.  I was shocked that she remembered it.
• She said “bu-na-NA” when eating breakfast this morning because it had banana in it.  She could name what it was she was eating!  So cool.  She says “ap po” easily (apple).  She can identify floss ( “ah sin”, typing, “da zee”, and even “doctor strange” — she said “doc” lol.  She really does know what we are talking about and it’s just around the corner that she will be able to piece together verbs and talking patterns of Cantonese to start speaking (!!)
• She repeats phrases like “jurn bop bop” (something is full — like her diaper) or “sai bat bat” (bath time) when looking at her baby photos when she was in the bathtub (grandma taught her that) or “hut ma ma” (dark).  The repetition is fun to say and easy to learn because it’s repeated.
• Speaking of which, she likes to look at the photo albums of when she was a little baby.  We ask her to point out who is who and she can identify who is mom, dad, and grandma.
• Also, she can now identify more body parts like her belly button and feet and hands.  Also, she can say her own Chinese name now.  She can answer four questions correctly.  When we ask her “who is _____ (Chinese name)?” She answers by raising her hand.  When I ask her what her name is, she replies with her English name.  When I ask her what is her Chinese name, she answers.  And lastly when I ask her how old she is, she can raise up her hand to her lips to show “one”. 😀
• Her left side molar is nearly all out now and she can chew so well these days.  She chews and swallows food quickly, which is awesome.
• She can hold a small open cup and drink water.  She still spills water out sometimes, but I know she is improving.  It’s a mess to clean up spills, but if I don’t let her to try drinking out of the cup, how will she learn?  It’s hard to let the messes happen sometimes.
• Sometimes, she even holds the cup to drink while standing.  But she recognizes it’s a little difficult so she ends up kneeling so that she is stable enough to drink the water.
• She has been able to hold a bottle to drink milk by herself for a couple of weeks now.  She is such a big girl.  She likes to hold the lid of the bottle to and then cap it herself after drinking it.  She knows she has to tilt the bottle in order to finish the last drops of the milk in the bottle.
• She knows to say “ga dee” (add some) or “dor dee” for “more” in terms of water.  It’s cool.  She doesn’t need to sign for it; she can actually say it now!
• She can say “por por” so well now too.  She says it so sweetly that it melts grandma’s heart and can’t say no to her.
• She also has learned to say “ma ma” with an intonation on the second syllable so that it sounds like “ma MA”.  It’s very endearing as well.
• She sometimes pushes DH away in favour of me.  We like to joke that DH takes care of her at night but yet she wants nothing to do with him in the daytime lol…
• We had a phone appointment with the pediatrician this week because grandma was worried that the little white “threads” near her private area were worms.  I didn’t really think so but I also didn’t know what those things were.  We took photos and sent them to the doctor to see what was up.  He confirmed via the phone that it was nothing to worry about, that children in Canada rarely get worms (it’s more of a travel thing or a thing that happens in warmer climates), and that it might be discharge for little girls.  Good thing we had it checked out anyway.
• This week, while more interested in reading books again, she has a very low attention span.  She wants me to read a couple of pages of the book to her and then she quickly points another book at me to read.  And then the same thing happens.  I’m not mentally energetic enough to switch out her books and toys weekly (we’re moving soon in any event), but I should have less books out and rotate them so that she has better attention span for fewer books.
• Whenever we smell she has pooped and ask her if she has, she always shakes her head “no”.  But we do find that she has a spoiled diaper.  She remains good at staying still on the bathroom countertop while being changed.  We can’t change her on the change table.  She would just turn around and roll away.  But the bathroom countertop so far (crosses fingers) is the best place for diaper changes.
• The 2.5 TOG sleep sack hasn’t made a difference in how long she stays asleep at night.  Maybe when we move and she sleeps in a different bedroom that is more dark, she will sleep better??  (fingers crossed).
• As of the time of writing, we switched her bedroom layout around again to move the floor mattress closer to the crib.  DH’s plan tonight is to try to put her on the floor mattress when she gets up tonight and then let her sleep there to see if she sleeps better there and for longer.
• Oh, and yes, this week, she has learned how to spin around in a circle and does it every so often.  She doesn’t seem to be dizzy afterwards though.  Something new.
• She continues to pick up random garbage on the floor sometimes and hands it to us.  Yay for not eating it.
• When I wake up in the mornings, the first thing I hear from her is “ma ma?” Lol… and then it’s hard to hide after that.
• Because of the Omicron virus going around, we definitely don’t take her out anymore and so she’s continued to shelter in place and not know of the outside world.  How is she going to go to school in the future when she is so used to be at home with just the three of us?!
• She can also hold her bowl and drink soup/water out of it.
• She can independently climb up onto the massage chair or rocking chair and sit in it like she’s a boss XD.
• Have been taking fewer photos of her this week due to exhaustion and (just being in the moment, I guess).
• Took advantage of my body again and ate something triggering this weekend (fave kebabs and rice place which inadvertently contains too much tumeric in the rice and had some stew that had eggplant in it) and a flare came up.  Back to eating very clean again to rid the flare.  Also need to sleep earlier and try to stress less (although hard to do because we are in the midst of moving houses and moving is always stressful no matter how easy we are trying to make it).
• Oh, and just today, she was on the bottom part of the stairs and heading up when I wanted to grab my phone from the kitchen.  She said “deet” which means “fall” and then she tumbled down the remaining steps on to the floor.  Oops.  She cried for a few seconds but wasn’t in any harm. 😐 First time she has “fallen down” the stairs.  It wasn’t a big fall though.  No bruise.
• Oh and this week we started to use the regular adult nail clippers on her nails since the nail trimmers are starting to not be effective. Bb let us cut her nails using the clippers without fussing. Yay! She took an interest to it too and liked it when grandma clipped her nails such that bb asks for it actually now lol.