Week 73 – easy naps, wooden screws

Bb’s play things

Week 73:

Feb 15: So much to talk about!!! First of all, I never find myself sleeping “early” anymore. After bb goes to bed and I finally have time to myself, I can zone out to my phone for hours. It’s especially bad when I see it’s close to 11pm and then 11:30 and then 11:45 that I end up waiting for midnight to strike so I can play Wordle 😂. I must have not slept before midnight in more than a month. It’s a terrible habit and I could be less tired and sleep deprived if I can only just force myself to sleep early. #nightowlforlife
Bb has been sleeping really well at night with only waking up once or sleeping through the night. Yay! Finally!!! 17 months old soon 🙌🏼
There are so many things throughout the day that I want to include in these weekly blog posts but now that I have time to write them down, they escape me..
She naps perfect 2 hour-naps these days. I put her to nap between 1 to 2pm and she sleep until 3 or 4. It’s amazing and efficient. She willingly gets into her sleep sack to sleep.
More specifically, the routine is I’ll feed her food or milk before 12pm and let her have time to digest. Then around 1pm or 2pm, I’ll take her to her room. I help her take off her house slippers (floors are cold in the house), help her get into her sleep sack (she knows to “get in the bag”), and then I’ll say “it’s time to sleep” (gau ju la) and then get up and walk to the door and close the door behind me. She watches me as I go. (She also clutches her stuffed doll that she sleeps with). I turn on the Nanit app and watch her as I sit in the glider in the next room. She talks or plays with the doll and then soon after she will say “da gu” and then curl up on the floor mat and sleep. (Despite having a mattress on the floor, she prefers to sleep on the mat for whatever reason). She doesn’t need to cry to sleep like before. She just talks and guides herself to sleep. This is what dreams are made of! So so great.
After she falls asleep (and I’ve zoned out enough on my phone), I quietly walk out of the room in case she hears me and gets disturbed and I’ll go downstairs to wash the dishes or eat a late lunch. It’s been a great routine the past week with grandma still busying at the old house.
Bb likes to play peekaboo this week still. She’ll say “lay my” and is entertained with me hiding behind the play kitchen or couch. She gets so excited. She likes to hide in her little corner behind her side of the play kitchen.
She likes to see her stuffed animals “run” – (pao bo, pao bo). When I take them to “run” with their legs moving, she gets such a big kick out of it (pun intended) and runs towards me and crashes into me. So funny.
She is able to use a wooden play screw and screw it into the square peg of the Melissa and Doug toolbox toy. She likes saying “law see” (screw) and actually has been saying that since last week when I used the screws as the glockenspiel for the xylophone. She used the screw as a toy in itself this week which seemed brilliant to me. She turned the screw upside down to have it sit and then placed the plastic frosting cupcake tops through them like a toy. So great to see! It’s good for hand eye coordination and pincer grasp.
She likes to play with the old school radio that we have on the kitchen counter. She likes to turn the volume low and then say “yum lok” (music) even though she is the one who turned off the music. I tried to teach her to switch the dial back up to turn it on, but she only knows how to turn it down.
She can identify and match bottles of vitamins to each family member. She’s watched us take vitamins daily for the past year and knows when the pink bottle is mine, the purple is grandma’s, etc. In fact, we showed each bottle to her and she was able to match each one correctly to each person. She can also identify that the coffee grinds are her dad’s as well as the matcha tea. So cool.
She can also do this with clothing too. She knows when a shirt or coat or sock is her dad’s or grandma’s or mom’s. This has been happening for a while too.
She knows the bath time routine and bedtime routine. She calls out the next step before we do it. “Lam peen, cha go go”
Sometimes we say things at the same time and jinx each other. I am calling out the item and she happens to say it too because she likes to identify things too.
She is obsessed with the Dr. Strange figure once again. It is so cute to hear her call him.
She loves bopping to music and playing the electronic small piano. She is good at it.
The Intellitainer is starting to break. She likes to flip and open the book part of it which starts reading out the words as well as hitting the buttons to hear the sounds. This week, I noticed that the sounds are starting to not work anymore… unfortunate because it’s actually a pretty good toy that plays songs and nursery rhymes and colours and words and numbers. I Googled it and it actually is a very old toy and they don’t even sell it anymore. (Bought this off of FBM last year for $15 only).
Had a video call with a friend and bb was so so shy and uncomfortable. She laid down and whimpered/cried even though it was just a video chat. She improved after about 10 minutes though..
Feb 16: Forgot to mention this weeks ago but ever since I stopped pumping last year, I drink less water than before. I had to stay very hydrated to produce milk and to consistently rid of clogs that I would down soo much water. Nowadays, I drink less.. which I should step up again. Appetite wise is still the same; not very ravishing as much as when I was pumping.
Bb likes to climb the stairs by walking up and holding onto the rails like an adult. She doesn’t climb up the stairs anymore. I tell her to “fu shut” (hold tightly) onto the rails and go step by step (“yut bo bo”). She listens and does it. Actually, she started saying “fu shut” back at the old place when grandma was teaching her how to navigate the stairs. She knows she needs to hold tight. She also walks like this when going down the stairs too. Sometimes she’ll let me hold one hand while her other is holding the rails.
It’s still funny that she stays in bed (naps or nighttime) even if she’s awake and waits for someone to come get her before she rolls up and gets up. It’s like she is physically capable of waking up herself and even exploring her room, but she is always so obedient and waits for us first.
Whenever it is dinner time (recently once the takeout food has arrived), she automatically scurries up her high chair and gets ready to sit for the meal.
She says “chut lay” when she wants to get out of the high chair. She also says it when removing dolls from a jacket or sleep sack.
Speaking of which, she likes to put her stuffed animals into her clothes or sleep sack. She yanks on the zipper but doesn’t know to use the other hand to hold the clothing so that the zipper glides down smoothly.
She was also interested to see how the stuffed animal wears the clothing. I showed her to look at the tag at the back of the shirt and then to thread the arm through one opening “hole” and then through the other. Then to zip up the hoodie/shirt and then put the hood on. She can’t do it but likes to try. A few of her stuffed animals were in the hoodie this past week.
I was extremely impressed this week to see her use her toys as a make-believe toy for something else. In the photo for this week, I watched how she used the screw as a standing top and then placed the cupcake frosting parts on to the screw kind of like how you stack rings on a tower. She made that up herself and played with it. I didn’t teach her at all. So amazing.
Also in the photo, you can see the screws that are put through the holes in the toolbox. She learned how to do this. She had difficulty at first putting the screw through the hole and also when taking it back out. You have to pull it out straight otherwise it will get stuck. So cool to see her manipulating objects and also using them to play things in her own style. I want to get more items for her to manipulate. What toys are there out there? Or should I even consider buying new toys? I think she has plenty to play with at home…