First unaided steps

In the last couple of days, Laetitia has been taking a few unaided steps when she is totally unware of it. This happens either when she is excited or is thinking that she is being held. However, when she knows that we are not holding her hand, she is very apprehensive about walking by herself. I guess it is totally understandable as it IS something new for her. Anyways, we as parents are eagerly awaiting the day when she would just pick herself up and walk! And I reckon that it should not be too long. :-) If anyone has any unconventional ideas to help her walk faster, I'm all ears. I say unconventional as I believe we have tried most methods.

On a side note, here's my baby with her newly styled hair, the MOHAWK!

Just chilling...

Here's the little pie chilling out on her papa's chair with her mummy's pet toy dog, Brunie. Oh, look at the love. :)

And here's her having some fun with her Vsmile console.

She only scares me when she tries to stand while she is on the chair. I have this fear that she would lose her balance and fall off. :-(

Visit to the aquarium

Since it's the weekend and the weather did not look too great for being outdoor, we decided to find some place indoor that will be interesting for Laetitia. After some research online on suitable places/activities for a one year old, we decided on an aquarium. The question was which since there are more than a couple in Paris. We took the easy way out and selected the one nearest to us in the 12th district of Paris, Palais de la Porte Doree, Aquarium Tropical.

It's a rather small aquarium but a perfect size for a one year old. Interesting but not too overwhelming for the little one. Took us just slightly more than an hour to walk around. Here's some pictures we attempted inside. It was hard to take photos since there was not much light and we are not allowed to use flash.

With mummy.

With papa.

All alone.

Nouvelles chaussures pour Laetitia

Le semaine dernière, j'ai acheté deux paires de chaussures pour Laetitia parce qu'elle commence à marcher à l'extérieur (au parc et dans la cour de récréation). Avant elle a eu des chaussons en cuir qu'elle prend pour sortir et aller à la halte garderie.

Voici les chaussures qui sont arrivées il y a quelques jours.


J'espère que ces chaussures pourront aider Laetitia à marcher!

Potty training time.

I decided that I will start Laetitia on potty training after her first birthday but did not get around to buying her the potty. I finally got one yesterday and today we started potty training. She did her first successful poo in the potty. One big YEAH for my baby. Hahaha, I was gross and took a photo of the poo in the potty but I shall refrain from disgusting you! :p

Anyways, here's a couple of pics I took today while she was playing in her newly painted room. We moved the furnitures around and shifted the computer area to our room to provide her with more space to play.

Overnight hair growth!

This is what Laetitia's silly parents were up to when she is not around. Trying to digitally grow her hair!

Before

After!

Enjoying her time at her grandparents.

My sweetie pie has been staying in Carqueiranne with my parents in law since we left last Saturday. She will be there for a few more days. I'll pick her up this coming Friday afternoon. It's going to be a nice long journey for me. Four hours there and another four hours back.

She has been spending a wonderful time with her grandparents. She gets to go to the beach almost everyday, takes nice morning walks, chases after the cat and basically have jolly good fun. We have been getting "briefs" and photos daily on our little darling from Mamou. We try to do video-conferencing every day and it's so much fun seeing my little puupet. I miss her and at the same time, I enjoy having this time of freedom.

This is one of the photos we received this evening. It made me laugh out loud.

"Bye Mamou! I'm going to go to the office."

Ma petite chouchou me manque

Aujourd'hui Etienne et moi sommes partis de Carqueiranne pour Paris mais nous avons laissé notre bébé! C'est la première fois que Laetitia reste quelque part sans ses parents. Nous avons déjà appelé mes beaux parents et Mamou a dit que Laetitia va bien. Elle a fait deux promenades et elle a bien mangé, elle dort bien, etc. Je pense que cette expérience est plus difficile pour moi que pour Laetitia. Nous avons fait des vidéo-conférences par Skype et Msn aussi quand nous sommes rentrés chez nous à Paris. Mamou a envoyé quelque photos qu'elle a prises aujourd'hui. C'est mon bébé sur la plage. Regardez ma jolie petite fille.


Ces derniers jours, j'ai pris des photos et des vidéos de Laetitia chez mes beaux parents. Ca c'est quand elle joue toute seule.
Et ça c'est quand elle a monté les escaliers! Ca me fait peur!

More activities in Carqueiranne.

Aside from riding a police bike and having fun in the little pool, my little pie had fun exploring the house too. She was opening drawers, trying to push open doors, cruising around from room to room using a makeshift walker (aka plastic stool)... It was wonderful that she had all the space to move around.

Being caught red handed trying to ransack her Mamou's drawer.

"Opps Mummy!"
"Errrr. What shall I do next?"
"Maybe try to push open this door..."

"Aha! I'll use this chair to make my way across the room"

"No. It wasn't me nor mummy who did whatever you think we did. :p"

Finally, asleep in my arms after all the playing and exploring.

She also enjoyed being taken out daily by her Mamou. She would be taken out in the stroller to the beach, the port, the supermarket etc.

Here's a lovely picture of her and her Mamou.

I think she is relatively ready to spend the next week here without her mummy and papa. I'm the one who is a little apprehensive but I know she will be well taken care of. The first couple of days that we are here, she was a little difficult when it comes to the night routine. It is getting better now though we will be adjusting some of the routine while she is here. We will be giving her the bath in the day instead of the evening as part of her "put to bed" routine as she has proven to be more cranky and resistant to taking her bath in an unfamiliar environment. Other than that, I am not worried about anything. She has spent the entire afternoon without us while we went out and has been a darling with her Mamou.

Une bonne semaine à Carqueiranne.

Pour la premiere fois, j'essaye d'écrire en français. *for the first time, I will attempt to write in french.*

Cette semaine nous sommes à Carqueiranne, chez mes beaux parents. Laetitia passe de bons moments avec ses grand parents. Ils donnent à ma petite chouchou beaucoup de câlins et d'amour. Il y a beaucoup de choses qu'elle peut faire ici.

D'abord, elle a essayé une moto de police! Elle conduit comme une grande fille. Je pense qu'elle aime ça. Regardez les photos.


Quand elle a fait de la moto, son papa a preparé la petite piscine pour sa princesse. Le température est un petit peu froide et pour améliorer la température de l'eau dans la piscine, Etienne est monté beaucoup de fois pour prendre de l'eau chaude. Ah enfin, la piscine est prête pour la princesse. Regardez! Nous pensons qu'elle joue bien et qu'elle passe du bon temps dans la piscine.



Je pense que je vais écrire les choses qu'elle fait cette semaine en anglais. Cest fatigant pour moi d'écrire en français.

13 months old and growing!

My baby is 13 months old today. Sometimes I seem to think that she should be older than that. She is growing to be such a little princess. After finding out last Friday that she is not a play on the grass baby, we found out today that she seems to have equal distaste for sand! What a prim and proper girl.

We are off in the south of France visiting my in laws. Here's my baby in the TGV from Paris to Toulon. There's a video of her tapping on the table together with her mummy. :)

Here's my little pie doing what she loves in her grandparents, terrorising the family cat, Câline.

A little on her growth. She is finally gaining more weight. She is 8.9kgs and measures 77cm. A very lean and tall baby.

A day in the park

The last couple of days have been BEAUTIFUL here in Paris. A glorious sunny 27 degrees. Parisa and I decided to take the babies out and enjoy a bit of the sun. Truth be told, I am not too much of a park person. When Parisa asked me on Tuesday which park do I normally take Laetitia to, I had to sheepishly tell her that I don't take my little pie to walk in a park. I am not exactly keen on having Laetitia crawl on the grass and put things (like grass or dirt) in her mouth. Anal. I know.

So anyways, I decided maybe I should change that and we did go to the park today. We went to Square de la Roquette which is about 10 mins walk from our apartment. I finally had the opportunity to use the pretty picnic mat that I bought for Laetitia.

As you can see from the photo, the park is crowded. There were mothers with their babies, grandparents with their grandchild (as evident from the background of the photo), young couples, single females reading... It was tough finding a spot under the tree.

Soon we were joined by Olivia and her baby Max. Here's an attempt to take a photo of the three little ones. Not quite a kodah moment but at least a photo that shows the face of all three.
And here's more of Milly and Laetitia.


And I cannot resist putting this very lovely photo of Milly. What a sweet smile.
Oh, and I do not have to worry about Laetitia crawling on the grass. She HATES it. She absolutely refuses to go near the grass. The first time she accidentally put her hand on the grass, she immediately removed her hand and had this disgusted look on her face! My oh my, that little PRINCESS. I tried to entice her to step/crawl onto the grass and she would not bulge. It was really funny. It seemed as if there was this invisible fence on the edge of the mats. Well, that's truly my girl. :p

Coffee time with Ivana and Baby Bel

Yesterday I took Laetitia with me to Cafe Marly (a tres chic joint in the Louvre museum). We met up with Ivana and Baby Bel (Isabelle). It was lovely seeing them and it was the first time Laetitia met Baby Bel. Here's my little one trying to get acquainted with Baby Bel.

"Oh my gosh Mummy. It's a little baby!"

And here is the pretty mummy Ivana with her precious darling.

Just cruising along...

So, I guess I was wrong. It's not that she was not so interested in walking but rather her mummy did not provided her with the space to walk! DUH! Over the weekend, we decided to allow Laetitia more freedom in the apartment. She used to be confined to her playing area in her room. We finally allowed her to crawl around the hallway and the living room. And boy did she enjoy herself.

And it was then that I realised she did enjoy cruising up and down the hallway with her pusher toy. Here's my little baby going down the hall towards mummy and then back up towards her papa. She was having SO MUCH fun.

"Mummy! I'm coming to get you!"

And of course it is still fun to climb onto the toy.

Beautiful weekend.

The weather is beautiful this afternoon and so we took the little pie out for a walk.

Climbing, reading....

So, my little one seems to be totally uninterested in walking. Hmmmm..... She got her walking toy (a present from Auntie Jaimie) before her birthday and though I have been trying to get her interested in using it to help her to learn to walk, she is totally not interested. Instead, the toy is MUCH more fun when it is used as a climbing object. She just loves to climb onto the toy. She now has numerous bruises on her right leg (I will attempt to take some photos soon) as she would use it to support her body weight as she climbs onto the toy. Below is a photo of her just after she descended (I was not fast enough getting the camera) and her giving me a sheepish grin. She does stand very well on her own so I guess I'll just not be an overly competitive mummy worrying about when she would walk and compares her with her peers.

Updated: Bruise pic.

On a different note, Laetitia loves to be read to (obviously she does not and cannot read by herself yet) and enjoys flipping though her books. It could be that I have cultivated that habit in her by reading to her all the time since she was born. Now every morning, while she is having her breakfast, I would read two to three books with her and sometimes continue with some flash cards. It helps to entertain her while she is being fed. Her favourite right now is "The very hungry caterpillar". I would read the book and do the baby sign for caterpillar (finger crawling up the arm) and she would repeat the sign (but do it on my arm instead of hers) and laugh loudly when I exclaim "AH caterpillar!".

Just yesterday she received four board books in the post. They were presents from Auntie Carol(Foo) and Auntie Elin. Thank you both so much for the books. I'm looking forward to reading them to her. In fact, she loves board books so much that one of the caregivers in her garderie (daycare) made it a note to mention to me that she loves flipping through the books and that I should get her some. Hahaha, she did not know that Laetitia already has a very decent collection of books and it's increasing. I hope she will continue to enjoy books (either being read to or eventually reading them herself).

Chatty cool baby.

I had a wonderful three days by myself doing touristy stuff (visiting the Opera, chateau de versailles and having coffee in the Louvre) last week but I am so happy to have my baby and hubby home. :-) It seems that Laetitia had a good time with her mamou and papou (that's how she calls her paternal grandparents). She loves the space she has to crawl around and enjoys chasing after the cat. We'll be off to visit them again at the end of the month and this time we might attempt to leave the little pie behind for a couple of days to a week while we return to Paris by ourselves. Wish us luck and success.

Recently Laetitia has been babbling A LOT. She is talkative like her mummy although we have no idea what in the world she is saying. Here's a fun video of her happily telling her mummy some of her adventures. And as usual, her mummy was trying to get her to say "mama" and as usual, she did not have much success. :-(


The little cheeky monster had to end the video by trying to stick her finger in her nose. hmmmm.....

Anyways, here's her striking a cool relaxing pose after she finished her dinner.

A little trip without Mummy!!??!

My little pie is on her first trip without her mummy! Waahhhhh..... I am not sure if it's her crying or me! Well, actually neither. She probably does not even realise that I am not on the trip with her. She has her precious papa right by her side (and I say this lovingly). This little chouchou really loves her papa. She was so happy when he came home from work on Friday after not seeing her for the last 2 days. Absolutely delirious with joy.

Anyways, Etienne has taken her to the south to his parents for two days leaving me alone in Paris. It is taking time to sink into me that I AM ALONE! I wonder if my darling misses me yet. :p

Mealtime

Increasingly, I have been letting Laetitia feed herself certain portions of her meals. She would usually feed herself her fruits during lunchtime from Fridays to Mondays (Tuesdays to Thursdays are out as we are usually rushing to finish lunch and get ourselves to the garderie). She gets to try to use a spoon to scoop her puree into her mouth but most of the time, she is too distracted and impatient to want to do it for long. However, she LOVES stuffing whole pieces of food in her mouth so fruits are the perfect way to supplement this "training sessions". I think I might try giving her pasta and cheese when I'm more courageous with regards to the probable mess it will create!

Over dinners she would be given some cheese toast to self feed and she would throw a little tantrum if I'm too slow getting her toast to her. Sigh.....

Anyways, here's a couple of pics taken when she's happily eating her oranges and banana (or "nana" as she happily calls it).

"HEY MUMMY! What are you doing? Can you let me eat in private?"

"You're unbelievable Mummy.! I look a mess! Yogurt on my face and all.... Hmmmm."

"BLAAAAAA"

"Sigh.... you're not going away are you? I'm going to enjoy my banana no matter how much you annoy me."

A one year photo diary.

She's a BIG girl now.

When she was born, she weighed 3.48kgs and measured 51cms. Now, she is about 8.5kgs and measures about 74cm (estimation since she has not been weighed or measured recently).

Here's a little photo collage.