A sofa for Laetitia

Well, Laetitia seems to have this love for little seats that are her size. She loves to squeeze herself into a bouncy chair or sit on a small box that is just the right size whereby her feet would touch the ground as she sits on it. She is even happier when I push the box right against the wall so she has some sort of backing.

So, I decided to embark on a search for the perfect infant sofa for her. Boy oh boy is it hard. Well, there are many awesome ones but her mummy is feeling cheap after buying her the ergo carrier (which was 30% more expensive here in Paris than buying it in the US) so I am trying to find a good deal.

The question is always, do I just suck it up and buy a cheapie since she might not know the difference?

The NICE ones I like

Or the normal plain ones which are less than half the price!

Or something in the middle price range?

Well, her papa disapproves of the ones I like. PUI! But, he does have good taste sometimes and the one he prefers is quite pretty and is not as expensive as the ones I choose but not that cheap either.

So, here goes...
Well, my original thought was if I'm paying so much, then I might as well get the one I really like but he thinks the purple one looks too Louis XVI (he joked that we should get Lae a queen's crown if we get that seat). GGGRRRRRRR......

A day out and her new carrier.

In preparation for our coming trip to Singapore where I will be travelling alone with Laetitia on the return flight back to Paris, I bought the Ergo baby carrier (as she is almost outgrowing her Baby Bjorn carrier). The carrier allows toddlers up to 20 kgs to be carried on it and it seems to have a much better balance of weight support on the back. Anyways, we tried it out over the weekend when we went to visit Baby Alrik and his parents.

Here's papa and darling.

While we were at their place, Lae got to try on one of those jolly jumper/jumperoo things. She had quite a bit on fun on it but was too impatient to stay still in one spot. That's the thing with mobile children I guess.

Meal times!

A look at Laetitia's lunches during the week.

1. Steamed Garlic Ginger Chicken seasoned with sesame oil with carots, leeks and potato porridge. A slice of cheese served on the side. (followed by a pot of yogurt for desserts).


2. Beef balls seasoned with a dash of curry powder and soya sauce with carots and turnips porridge. A slice of cheese served on the side. (followed by a pot of yogurt for desserts).


3. Ham with steamed zucchini and mashed potatoes. A slice of cheese served on the side. (followed by a pot of yogurt for desserts).

All food served with her lovely cutlery set given to her from Sherren.

And she talks on the phone...

Here's a little video of my petite chouchou babbling away on the phone. She does that ALL the time when I hand the phone over to her. We might not understand what she is saying except for the initial "hello" (said in a very french way, with a silent "h"). My mum absolutely loves it when I put Laetitia on the phone whenever I call her.

And she walks....

She has definitely been walking more and more. Here's a video of her walking to get the telephone. Oh, the other thing is, she LOVES to talk on the phone. She is ever so happy to "chat" with her grandma who is in Singapore.

On a side note, I noticed that she has been having little tantrums spells lately. It's not outrageous but definitely more. In preparation for dealing with them, I bought the book "Happiest Toddler on the block". I would also be happy to receive recommendations on books that has worked for others so if there is a specific book that you (mummies) find is useful, please do not hesitate to leave a note to tell me about it in the comments section. I will definitely appreciate it.

What has Laetitia been up to?

The last week has been a relatively busy week. We came back to Paris around the same time on Sunday night from our respectively vacation spots. Monday was my birthday and on Wednesday, our friends from Toronto, Carolina and Luke, came to Paris. We are hosting them and they leave tomorrow morning.

Today they took us out to lunch (we wanted to go to this pretty little place at Passage des Panorama but it was closed so we went to Hippopotamus instead) and after that Laetitia went to Kylian's first birthday party. It was definitely a fun filled week. And of course tomorrow is Father's Day. Laetitia had to get to work with wraping the present and making her papa a card!

Here are a few pictures taken during the week.

In the halte garderie playing on the rocking horse.

Sitting on the little table/chair set while sipping her water in the Mason de Parents play area.

Playing in the playground near our apartment.

Laetitia off to the south of France again.

Yes, Laetitia is off in the south to see her grandparents courtesy of the fact that I am vacationing alone in Rome right now. Her papa decided that it might be a bit too much for him to handle her all by himself for the three days that I am away so he took her with him to his parents. :-) The good part of it all is my parents in law are delighted to see them too.

Well, we'll be reunited tomorrow night when we all go back home to Paris. Until then, ciao!

Typical menu in Laetitia's day.

It seems that I must be doing something right finally. After a few months of worrying about her apparent lack of weight gain, she is finally back on track. She put on 500g in one and a half months (She was 8.9kg on 23 April and 9.4kgs yesterday).

In a typical day, this is what she is eating.
_____________________________________________________________
Breakfast - at around 8.30am
1) 210 ml of fresh full cream milk

2) one piece of weetabix (she takes some dry and some mixed with the milk from (1)

3) Fresh fruits
Bite size pieces of fresh fruits offered in a bowl. She could finish about 1/4 of a banana.


Mid morning snack - at around 10am
1) A 100g size fruit puree

2) A small (1/4 piece) slice of bread/a piece of biscuits


Lunch - usually around 12.30pm
1) 200g - 220g of vegetables and grains
(I make them mushy. It used to be pureed but now I just mushy them with a spoon or fork.)

2) 30 - 40g of meat/fish (I vary between beef, veal, chicken, lamb, ham, seabass, salmon, pork etc. Once in a while, she gets something exotic like rabbit!)

3) 1 slice of cheese (kraft singles type)

4) 100g yogurt or cream dessert (I normally buy Blédicrèm chocolate/caramel etc)

Examples of some her lunch menu over the last week:-
- Zuchinni, spinach and potatoes mixed with brown rice served with veal.
- Carrots, leeks and green peas mxied rice served with seabass.
- Turnips, spinach and brocoli mixed with smelt served with lamb.
- Green beans and carrots with rice served with pork.


Afternoon snack - usually around 4.00pm
1) 100g yogurt
2) 130g of fruit puree


Dinner - usually around 7pm
1) 150 - 200 ml of soup puree (I usually put aside some of the vegetable/grain dish that I cooked for lunch as dinner but I will add into the puree one other vegetable mixed to vary the taste.)

2) One serving of cheese (Laughing cow fondant cheese)

3) 120 ml of fresh full cream Milk

4) One small piece of bread. (usually french loaf)
_____________________________________________________________

I reckon she has a very well balanced meal. And if anyone has any suggestions for interesting menus that I can use or improvise on, let me know. I am always happy to try new things for Laetitia.

Of course, it's hard to have a post without a picture of my darling... :-)

Fête des mères

Today is the French Mother's day and boy am I spoiled.

My little baby "bought" some delicious seafood for me so that I do not have to cook dinner. Although the oyster season is over, she managed to find some and bought them knowing how much I LOVE oysters. She got some prawns and crab pincers at the same time. Check out the delicious spread. I happened to make a scallop cake that afternoon too.


And here are the wonderful presents she got me. Tickets to take the three of us to the top of Eiffel tower and the wax museum (Musée Grévin) plus some vouchers for Galeries Lafayette. She knows mummy loves shopping. Nice. More importantly, she gave mummy a little masterpiece. That reminds me, I have to go buy some non toxic washable paint for finger painting and some non toxic washable markers for fun scribbling.

And finally my baby decided that she had enough for the day and she would like to leave the house to take a little hike. :p

All ready! Let me out Mummy!

We're featured in Canadian Family!

Our blog has been featured in the Canadian Family website! And I believe it is going to be in the magazine too. How exciting.

I uploaded a screen shot of the article on the website that mentioned this blog for keepsake. If you click on the picture it will take you to the article itself.

For readers who are directed here by the article (either on the website or the magazine), I hope you have as much fun reading this blog as I have when writing it. :-)

First taste of cherries.

It's cherry season in France right now. I LOVE LOVE LOVE cherries. I could eat a kilo of cherries all by myself anytime.

So, as I was feeding Laetitia her breakfast this morning, I was enjoying my cherries at the same time. Yes, I was having cherries for breakfast. My little pie was eyeing my lovely deep red fruit and I decided to give her some to try when she was done with her food (milk and weetabix).

I think she likes them. The only problem is, she makes a mess at the same time. There was bits and juice all over the place.

Hmm..... what is this taste?
I am not sure if I like it.

Let me take another bite of this strange fruit.

I LOVE them too Mummy. (What a BIG grin!)

14 months old and her language repertoire.

My little pie is becoming quite the little chatterbox. She talks a lot though we might not understand most of it. I try my best to speak to her using complete short sentences as much as possible. At the same time, I tell her about things that she see or name the objects whenever I can. I also use baby sign language with her for words that may be too complicated. And of course, I communicate with her in English (only) and Etienne would use French. There are times we might slip (I would include some French words in my sentences and he would use some English words when he speaks to her) but we do our best to keep to a "one person one language" thing.

The caregivers in the halte garderie (daycare) tell me that Laetitia loves recounting stories (their sweet way for saying that she loves to verbalise) and would sometimes whisper! Yes, we do that at home as a game, whispering.

So, here's her verbal repertoire.
PAPA - favourite word, repeated all the time thoughout the day. Declared loudly when her papa comes home from work.
MAMA - Used once in a while during the day. Sometimes she would look at me and say ever so sweetly "mama"
PAPOU - Said often when she was at my inlaws. That's how she calls her grandpa.
MAMOU - Once in a while when we repeat it to her
NANA - Short for banana. She loves this fruit.
NAINAI - Milk. Sounds like the chinese word for milk which I was using (bad mummy did not keep to the one person one language rule)
TER TER - Water but she seldoms use it.
BAIN - French for bath
PAIN - French for bread
MUM MUM - food

And her Baby sign repertoire.
Caterpillar
Cheese
More
Bye/Hello (same hand action)
Star
No more/All done
Elephant

I guess that's about all for now (or at least what I can remember). :)

I have been doing more shopping for Laetitia! Someone HAS to stop me. The summer sale is not even here yet!

So, more new shoes! A pair of Timberland


Some new summery clothes




We're all READY for summer. Now we just need the weather to cooperate!

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!