First day in the Halte Garderie (Daycare/Nursery)

It all happened really fast! Last Friday I went to the private halte garderie that I registered Laetitia for in June to check on our waitlist status. I registered in the public garderies too but was told that it would be September 2007 before I could possibly get a spot!!! Anyways, when I was there, I was told that I have progressed from number 49 in the list to number 26 and that I would probably get a place around next January. I was a little disappointed but there was nothing much I could do. The waitlist for garderies and creche in Paris is ridiculously long and there are not many places that will accept babies less than a year old. Fast forward to Monday, I was at a park with three other English speaking mummies and their babies when I received a call from the Directrice of the garderie. She informed me that there is a place available for the 4pm to 7pm slot and asked if I was interested. OF COURSE! So, I made the appointment to do the registration on Tuesday morning and we started the first day of our "period l'adaptation" today.

It went well except for a slight moment when Laetitia was a little frightened by another baby girl who tried to touch her. She has been fine with other children or babies that she has come across so far (in church and when I meet up with other English speaking mummies and babies). It might be that this particular little girl was crying and upset and it scared her a little. She was alright with the caregivers though. It's a nice little place and the caregivers seems very patient and loving.

Friday we will continue with the "period l'adaptation" whereby I will remain with her for 30 minutes and then she will be alone there for another 30 minutes. This will progress to me being with her for 30 minutes and her alone for an hour and 30 minutes before being left there by herself for the first time for 3 hours next Wednesday. She will be going to the garderie three times a week (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays) 3 hours each time. I think it's probably scarier for me than for her! :p

Here's some new photos of my foot eating baby. (I think she is trying to tell me something about when she starts talking e.g. foot in mouth! hahaha)

Opps! Caught in the act (foot in mouth!)

Sheepish look of embarassment!
"I was just checking out my toe nails Mummy"

Apples for the first time.

Pureed apples of course!

After 4 days of potatoes with zucchini, today, I gave my "little put put" some pureed golden apples (Bledina Pommes Golden). I think she didn't like it too much. She refuses to open her mouth anymore after maybe the second spoon that I stuff into her mouth. After that, I tried mixing it with some cereals and the results were not better. Eventually I added some formula milk into the mix and she relented a little. I tasted the pureed apples and they were actually not bad. It was much tastier than the potatos with zucchini in my humble opinion but then I'm not the one eating.

Well, I will try again tomorrow. :-)

(It's tomorrow and she still does not like it! Check out these expressions!)

Mummy, what in the world are you feeding me?!?

Yucks! This is disgusting! I don't like it.

First taste of vegetables

For dinner, Laetitia was given a small serving of "Pommes de terre courgettes" which is potatos with zucchini. It was funny watching her taste new food. I wished I had prepared the camera like before but I didn't. What a waste. She had the "what in the world is this that you put in my mouth" look! Then the "yikes" look before finally swallowing it. It took a couple of spoonfuls for her to decide that it was not too bad after all.

Now is the start of actual solids! I bought little pots of carrots as well. However, she will try each food for four days before I introduce something new.

Onto something slightly disgusting, I did notice that her poo is a little smellier since she started on cereals, I'm sure it will be even more gross from now on!

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.

4 months has passed...

What?!? You mean my baby girl is 4 months old!!! And boy has she grown longer (taller) and heavier. Of course she is also getting cuter and cuter by the day.

Here's some recent stats of her growth.

Lenght: 64.5cm (last month = 61cm)
Weight: 5.9kgs (last month = 5.37kgs)
Head Circumference: 41cm (last month = 40cm)

New things she started doing over the course of this month:-
1) Hold her head steady when carried
2) Work to get a toy that is out of reach
3) Bear some weight on her legs
4) Turn in the direction of a voice
5) Razz (make a wet razzing sound)

And for this 4 months old birthday, she had a little present from her Papou and Mamou (her paternal grandparents). A neat Galeries Lafayette gift card to buy more toys/clothes! Heehee. Mummy will help her choose what to buy.

Brumisateur Effect.

The heat in Paris is not getting much better and I've been coming up with different ways to cool Laetitia down and help her cope with the high temperatures. She gets a bath nightly at around 8pm before her sleep and I also put her clothes in the freezer before her bath so that it is nice and cool when I put them on her. The other thing I've started to do is to spray her with the Evian Brumisateur (atomiser). The expressions she has when I use the atomiser on her is hilarious! Check it out.

Adorable screeching baby.

Now that I have started to use the video mode of my digital camera, I find myself trying to make short clips of my little darling. Most are really fun but some of the video quality is crap due to the inexperience mummy.

Obviously she cannot talk yet but she loves to make different noises. She laughs, screechs, baby talks etc. This is one of her screeching (we prefers to call it singing though). It's so cute!



Here's a picture of her taken at the same time. I love her little chubby cheeks. SO CUTE!

I was trying to take videos of her attempting to crawl. She would raise her butt and then try to push herself forward. It makes both Etienne and I laugh whenever she does that. However, when I tried to shot it, she stopped. Cheeky baby. The only downside is that her face would be on the bed while she tries to push herself forward and this causes some slight carpet burns like marks on her face. Poor little chubby cheeks...

H.E.A.T W.A.V.E!

It's been oh so hot these last couple of days. It's times like these that I wonder if I make dumb comments like "I feel like I'm in a third world country!" due to the lack of air-conditioning in this city. I grew up in a tropical country that is HOT and SWEATY (humid) all year round BUT there is air-conditioning all over the place. All the public transports are air-conditioned, all indoor places are air-conditioned and most homes have A/C systems fitted. Here, the public transports are not and it's so stuffy in the metro. Oh, and don't remind me about the waves of body odors. Sigh. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little spoilt brat complaining. However it IS hard dealing with a cranky 3 plus months old in this heat. Even mummy is cranky so how could baby be happy and pleasant?

Well, this mummy tries really hard to entertain her little princess even in this heat and this is what I managed to do.

More on the tummy pics.

Took some photos of the happy baby on her tummy. Turning has become almost effortless for her. It's amazing how fast babies learn new things.

The only little issue is that she cannot turn from belly to back so sometimes she gets frustrated by that. Well, I'm sure she will be able to do that soon enough. :-)

On a slightly different note. Her daddy came home on Monday (10 Jul) with a lovely bouquet of flowers for her mummy. *so sweet* He said that he was thinking of us a lot in the office and kept smiling to the photographs of us that is on his work desk. Well, here's a pic of the grinning mummy with her beautiful flowers.

First back to belly flip!

Yesterday night I noticed that Laetitia was almost on her belly and was telling Etienne she might just make the flip. We waited for a while before giving up as we were rushing to go over to Philippe's place for dinner. Before we left, I captured some shots of her trying really hard to turn onto her belly. Allez Laetitia! Allez Allez!

This is considerably fast progress as I had mentioned in this post that she was starting to make the effort and was 1/2 to 3/4 of the way. And this morning after her 7am feed, I put her back in her cot and switch on her hanging mobile. Normally, by the time the mobile has gone through 3 cycles (me switching it on again after it goes off using the remote control from the guest bed in her room), she would fall asleep. However, this morning, by the third cycle, I was still hearing her legs knocking against the sides of the bed so I got out of the bed and saw this!!!

This mummy, though all tired and sleepy, had the good sense to go grab the camera and take the commemorative moment! YEAH LAETITIA!

Latest trick.

Laetitia's latest new trick is to hold her legs with her hands. Slowly but surely she is also attempting to stick her foot into her mouth! :p Until she finds something new to do, this discovery that she can actually hold on to her feet is giving her a great amount of fun.

First insect bite.

Ah! A meaningless post.... first insect bite mark on my babe's arm.

Here's the proof.... Just a tiny one.

And here is another picture just for the fun of it. By now I guess you know how much I love to post pictures of this pretty little thing. She seems to be saying "Hey, I've got an idea!"

Never been kissed.

I was trying to teach Laetitia to kiss me today. It was really fun and obviously delightful for me. I'm not sure if she likes or enjoys it as much this mummy does. At one point when I gave her my cheeks to be kissed, she started sucking on it as if it was the boob!!! Etienne took a few pictures of me coercing my baby to kiss me.

He calls the picture below my "never been kissed" look. He said I was smiling so deliriously like it's the first time I'm being kissed. Well, it is true! It's the first time my baby girl is "kissing" me.

Here's a sweeter picture although I think my darling baby does not look very impressed at having to kiss her mummy. She looks like she's saying.... "oh, ok mummy, if it would make you happy, here's a kiss..." :p