First trip out of France... Brussels

Laetitia took her first trip out of France! We left Paris on Aug 28th for a short 3 day trip to Brussels. We took Thalys, the fast speed train, from Gard du Nord to Brussels Gard du Midi. It took only about an hour and 30 minutes to get there. Impressive.

Brussels was cold and rainy. Not exactly the perfect weather but we did managed to get some sun shine on and off.

Here are some photos from our trip.

Papa and Little Lae Lae on Grand Place

Papa and Little Lae Lae infront of Grand Place (miniature in Mini Europe)

Cheeky butt butt giving a big smile inspite of the rain. No day is gloomy when we get a smile like this.

Greedy mummy with her belgium waffles topped with banana and chocolate sauce. Delicious!

Happy 5 months old Laetitia and Happy 3rd Anniversary to us (Etienne and I).

My baby girl is 5 months old today! She's growing well and is a happy chappy baby.

As usual for her monthly growth track, here are the latest specs!

Lenght: 66.5cm (last month = 64.5cm)
Weight: 6.65kgs (last month = 5.9kgs)
Head Circumference: 42cm (last month = 41cm)

New things she started doing over the course of this month:-
1) Roll over both ways (back to front and front to back) resulting in her first fall off the bed!
2) Keep head level with body when pulled to a sitting position.
3) Use her hands to raise her chest when on stomach
4) Pull herself up slightly from a lying position by grabbing something infront of her.

We're in Brussels taking a little wedding anniversary break. More pictures to come.

Pinch me I'm cute!

I love this adorable little T-shirt that one of my sister's friends gave to Laetitia. It's an Old Navy tee that says "PINCH ME I'm cute". It is really suitable for Laetitia as I have been "warned" by family and friends back home in Singapore that they are eagerly awaiting the day we get back to pinch my cutie pie's butt or cheeks. I'll make sure she wears this tee when she sees the people who have been saying that they want to pinch her cos she is cute! Hahaha. Aside from being spot on for people who wants to pinch her, the tee looks fabulous on my little butt butt. Yes, I've lots of nicknames for Laetitia.... little butt butt, little put put (like poo poo but said in a singlish way) etc.

So, do you think she looks good with the tee?

Miss little chubby cheeks! Getting very excited at seeing her mummy! Moving her hands vigorously. Opps! You're talking about me?
Chilling out. Yes, I know I'm cute. You can pinch me.
I told you I'm cute. :p

And now that my mum is able to access the internet and take a look at this site, there will be even more photos being put up (not that I was not already doing that!). It's just that I will probably be flooding this blog with more photos. Be forewarned!

Almost an "upward facing dog" yoga pose?

My little girl is growing faster and faster by the day. She has now learnt to push her chest up while on her belly... a somewhat "upward facing dog" yoga pose. She was having a good time doing it to impress both her papa and I. We were clapping and cheering her on everytime she did it and it made her laugh so hard too.

Look Mummy! Look what I can do!

What did you say papa? I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention. Oh, papa! I'm glad that you are very proud of me! I do try my best.

And with her growing up, she is also starting to have little "tantrums" once in a while. I can no longer just leave her by herself for too long before she starts complaining. She would make noises that seems to sound like "maaaaa..... maaaa....." Of course her papa would say that I am imagining things.

Happy mummy = Happy baby

She is slowly resembling me more and more...

The different smiles and a frown!

My little girl is usually happy but once in a while I catch her frowning or looking a little upset and I think that it's quite cute sometimes.

A contented happy face

Little chippy girl trying to say something to her mummy...

Hahaha she seriously looked angry.

First taste of cereal!

I have been eagerly awaiting the day when I will be able to feed Laetitia using methods other than breastfeeding since she started to refuse the bottle. Most of the books or information I read in the internet suggested a minimum of age 4 months old before introducing solids. Of course there were other things to take note of such as steady head control etcto be careful about. Well, I felt that Laetitia was more than ready and in fact, she seems very keen and interested whenever she sees me having my lunch (she is usually sleeping by the time we have our dinner).
Yesterday I decided to give her her very first spoon of cereal (Blédina's Ma 1ère Blédine goût nature) mixed with my expressed breastmilk.

I was very excited! She seems very happy and she's saying hi for the camera. :p

First mouth of cereal.

Not very impressed after all. I think it might be due to the fact that she was also POOING while I feed her!
I will persevere!

This early afternoon, I told myself I will have better luck at getting her to eat some of the cereal. I was going to feed her the cereal at the same time, the late afternoon feed. Keeping my fingers crossed and being optimistic, I started to get her ready. All settled in her swing, a bib to "catch" the mess that she might make and we're ready to roll.

Here's my bundle of joy looking all cheery as usual. That's a good start.

Here comes the yummy rice cereal..... WOO she is happy with it. Yippee. Big smiles for mummy.

I dare say that she seems to enjoy it.

It was not easy for her to learn to swallow after the cereal enters her mouth. It took a couple of spoons before she understood that she needed to swallow. I had to tilt the spoon high up (occasionally touching her nose with it) before she would do the swallowing action.

In the end, she managed to finished about 20ml of cereal. I made 35ml mixed with 3 tablespoonfuls of cereal to create a mixture of about 40ml. She had about half of it. I guess she could have finished everything but I read that it's best to introduce it slowly. After giving her the cereal, I continued to breastfeed her. I will do this incrementally over a week before finally replacing the 3pm feed (the feed before her last feed of the day) with cereal. After that, I will advance to replacing the second meal of the day with another type of solid food. Probably some vegetable/fruit puree.

Laetitia loves papa.

It's so sweet to see my baby girl with her papa. She always have big smiles ready for her papa when he comes on early enough to catch her before she goes to bed. Or sometimes in the morning. And of course her papa is smitten with her. The two people I love the most in this world!

A baby is hurt through her mummy's carelessness.

Yes, the baby is Laetitia and the mummy is me. I'm so sorry my darling baby. Mummy was careless.

In yesterday's post that I made in the early afternoon, I mentioned that Laetitia has learnt to turn from belly to back which means that she can literally move from one place to another. Well, you would think that I will probably be more careful since my precious child is getting a little more mobile. But NO!

So, yesterday afternoon we went grocery shopping and then arranged to have the grocery delivered. After that, we went home. While waiting for the grocery to be delivered, I was playing with Laetitia on the gymini as usual. The gymini is always placed on my bed so that it would be nice and comfy for her to lay on. As per before, I would leave her occasionally on the bed by herself (with two pillows around the sides of the gymini). This time however, when the delivery man arrived, she was playing towards the bottom of the gymini and was on her belly. Well, I went to open the door and attended to the groceries after that. As I was about to put the last item into the cabinet in the kitchen, I heard my little baby's cry. I went into the room thinking that she is probably in a funny position or getting bored when I saw an empty bed! My heart immediately sank and I ran across to the other side of the bed where my poor little bundle is on the floor crying her little heart out. I rushed to carry her and held her close to me. She was crying and I think I was crying too. I kept telling her "Mummy is sorry". I can't believe that I let her fall off the bed. Yes, it's my fault. I should have been more vigilant. The best part is Etienne has been reminding me time and time again to not leave her alone on the bed since she first learnt to turn from back to belly and yet I never heed his advice. And the result is, my little princess fell off the bed and it's my fault.

I was trying to calm her down and at the same time check where she was hurt. When she finally stopped crying, I saw that the right side of her face was red and there was a bump on the top right corner of her head. The next thought was to call Etienne and let him know. Thank God for a wonderful hubby who is calm and loving. He did not chide me nor was upset. He asked me to take care of our baby and he would be home immediately to go to the children hospital emergency together. He explained that it is just precautionary and it's good to let the doctor check that everything is okay with our darling.

By the time he came home, Laetitia was back to her normal behaviour, laughing and smiling while I played with her. In any case, we decided that we should still go to the hospital and have her checked.

Everything went well at the hospital. The doctor said she was fine and gave us a list of things to look out for during the following 48hours. We also had to wake her up every three hours during the night (when she sleeps) to make sure that she is well (e.g. does not fall unconscious). My poor baby, not only did she hurt herself, she had to be disturbed every three hours from her sleep. If only her mummy had been more careful.

Cuteness overdose.

Here's my little bundle of joy laughing and playing with her saliva.



And here are some picture to show my cheerful little girl. She usually greets me with BIG smiles like these when I go to her once she wakes up.

And as of yesterday, she has learnt to turn herself back from belly to back. Bravo Laetitia! Though I have yet to see it myself as the three or four times she did it, I was not by her side. I only saw the after effects (e.g. I left her on her belly and came back to find her on her back).

Laetitia's first visit to Carqueiranne

We visited my inlaws in Carqueiranne over the last 5 days. It was a wonderful getaway from Paris and delightful time spent with Papou and Mamou (that's how Laetitia will call her paternal grandparents). Laetitia got to spend some valuable and fun time with her grandparents and cousin (Alex). Etienne and I also got to spend some precious time together.

This is Laetitia and her papa on the train. Her papa was being silly pretending to "eat" her little toes. So sweet. :-)
And this is Laetitia and me on the train.

Laetitia and Mamou on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean sea.

Laetitia and Mamou inside the house.

Laetitia with both Papou and Mamou. (We had our dinners, and sometimes our lunches too, right here in the balcony overlooking the sea every night. It was truly amazing.)
We'll be back over Christmas!

PS: I almost forgot about Laetitia's first dip in the sea! Oh, she didn't like it too much. The water was too cold for her and she cried when her papa tried to put her in a couple of times. Oh well, hopefully she will be more accepting when we take our trip in Singapore in October. I'm sure the water will be much warmer though.