Paranoia at 18months old

Some people may call me crazy.

Some people may say I am being just too paranoid.

BUT I am having this at the back of my head that I may just need to seek early intervention to kickstart something in Mason...

Somehow, I don't feel the progress coming along that well anymore.

Something has changed.. what is it, I do not know but I need to do something about it while I can.

Going to be seeking various ways to kick this nudgy feeling away while he is still young and lots of help would be good to make my worries stay away.

*sigh*

I will always be paranoid until the day he speaks to me like how a neurotypical child does.

:(

Rare moments

Rare moments like these are hard to come by.

Weather is perfect. Thunderstorm, aircon blowing, both boy snuggled up on the couch with their comforter and me, here, sipping my HOT coffee and trying to blog. :)

How long would this moment last? Hmm.. let us see.

Last Wednesday, I took Mason to the paed's clinic to do a little weigh-in just to make sure he is growing up fine.

So as of, 27th May 2015, Mason is 8.95kg and 82cm in height. 

I have checked his growth chart and it seems that he is in the normal range so yay! He has been eating more solids now, almost two-three meals with snacks occasionally. He would come to us with his mouth open whenever we are eating and it is so hard not to give in to him. :)

Mason has now 12 teeth. 2top back teeth, 4 upper front teeth, 2 bottom back teeth and 4 bottom front teeth, which the 2 is just popping out so it is really cute to see those whites, although I do really miss those gummy smiles. Now that he has more teeth, he is chewing his food much more properly with occasional gags here and there which reminds me to get a pair of food cutting scissors to keep in my bag. 

o.Oh, the small one just stirred.. he is going to be waking up real soon. Both boys have been napping for almost 2 hours now. Neighbors' kids are making helluva noise but that is expected at evening playtime. Dogs are barking at one another that gets to go for walks.. *sigh* Things that never really annoys me when I was not a mother easily annoys me now.. especially when those noises wake your tiny terrors up. Hate it most when you have just put them down to bed, and they were just going to doze off or just dozed off, and you think that you can creep out of the room, the doorbell goes ding dong ding dong ding dong. Nope, they do not press the doorbell once but like forever until you open that damn gate for them. 

Jaden, is having his mid-term break from today onwards. TWO WEEKS. I certainly have to manage my time well to spend time doing work with him. If not, he will be just planting his ass on the couch, wanting to watch TV all the time. 

He has just lost his third teeth today. One of his top front teeth has come loose, and the teacher had helped him pulled it out. One more loose teeth to go and soon he will have a two front toothless smile. He is growing up too fast for me. 

In just over a year of not being able to carry him when I was pregnant, right after I gave birth, I realized that I could no longer carry him due to his weight. He was just too heavy for me, which I had not felt before when he was 5 years old. Not only his weight, his limbs are all spilling out of me. Can't believe that this was the little boy that came out of me about 7.5 years ago. 

Wokay, the little one is up and that means blogging time is up too. Shall continue tonight.

Every day is a long day for mama

Finally, some time to myself after both the little ones have gone to bed and I don't feel like sleeping just yet.

In a blink of an eye, it is almost half of 2015 and I do not think Jaden has progressed much compared to last year. 

The only thing I considered that he has successfully achieved, that can be said, another milestone hit is going to toilet to poo. He would still poo in the diapers if given a choice. He will not take the initiative to want to remove the diapers to go to toilet. That is why he is diaper-free at home now, except nap or bedtime or when we are going out for long hours, especially when time is mostly spent in the car. I can't see myself rushing to find him a toilet with Mason in hand all by myself just yet.

School is also teaching him how to verbalise sounds, such as bye bye, which he can actually verbalised it but he will not say it unless you ask him to. He rather signed bye bye instead. 

I am becoming more impatient with him, as he grows older. Not because he is slow but because of his refusal to listen and look. This boy of mine, if he looks at what he is supposed to do, he always gets it right, at least 95% right BUT he rather not look. Not sure if it has something to do with his strabismus and 3D vision and that is also worrying me out. I have already contacted the vision therapist, yet to get a reply from him. Too many clients, maybe? I did not really had a good experience the first time round, especially with his team of helpers. Hopefully after two/three years, they have learnt how to handle non-verbal autistic children. I really hope vision therapy can help Jaden because surgery is the last thing I would want for him. Surgery, afterall is just cosmetics but it is the 3D vision that I want Jaden to have, so that he can view his surroundings normally like us. I don't even know what his vision is like right now as he is clumsy and *sigh* off balance in everything.

He is a smart boy. Too smart for his own good. Smart in a bad way, that he act-smart in trying to do short-cuts when those short-cuts are not meant to be taken. That is why, those things pisses me off. Things that he knows how to do, he refuses to do them. He rather close his eyes and cry. *double sigh* 

He gets distracted so easily but that, every child does. The fact that he cannot be independent enough to complete a task drives me up the wall. Lately, his school has been giving him homework during the weekend to take home to occupy his time and because of him being up to no good if he were to do his homework in the living room, I had to bring his table and chairs into the kitchen, sit him there to do his work while I try to clean the dishes, do my laundry and cook. HOWEVER, I will always end up at least, for two hours, with my blood pressure rising, trying to prompt him the right way to do his task, which he ALWAYS, ALWAYS try to take short-cuts and end up screwing the whole task. Once he masters it, after the two hours of continuously doing the same task, and I thought I could use a breather and backaway and go do my dishes, just a few feet away from him, he starts daydreaming. HOW LAH NOT TO PUKE BLOOD? 

It is really mentally and physically draining for me, and it is not only due to Jaden zapping all my energy but because of Mason too. In amidst all the tension in between his brother and I, the small one suddenly comes in between and wants to run off with his brother's homework, he wants me to go and play with him, he wants to breastfeed, he wants to climb onto the table... and I had to be stern and tell him to go play by himself as I am teaching Jaden. I really feel so bad because I can't seem to spread my time out for both boys equally as they deserve. 

I always want to bring them out at 6-630pm to the park and play but I can't.. because I have to prepare dinner, or drive out to buy dinner for the hubs. Because I had to clean up the mess the boys made earlier during the day. Because I have not bathed yet the whole day. Because I need to do the dishes. Because I have not hung the laundry yet. 

I have got piles of clean laundry that needs to be kept away, old/small clothes that needs to be stored away since weeks ago and I, still, have not gotten down to that. Each time I see those clothes around, I get frustrated and I am just waiting for that one day, the man to sound me for being such a lazy ass.

Jaden has been getting alot of mosquito bites, and now, even more rashes due to the food he eats and it makes him itchy and that triggers him to scratch until he bleeds. He can't stop scratching the wound until it scars and now he looks like a kucing kurap and it depresses me a lot because I feel very sakit hati to see him looking like that. He, is not aware of how he looks with those marks around him but I don't want others to say him in future and hurt his feelings. All I can do is now, work with his school team and ask them to help me curb this scratching behavior. I do apply cream on him, but how lah the cream work when he tends to rub them off when my head turns?

Mason is not 1 year 5 months 18 days old. 

He has just lift off his two feet today successfully. He has finally mastered the jump. 

Super cute.

What can I say about Mason? He eats whatever we eats and he seems pretty much ok with food that has black pepper too. He seem to tolerate spicy food better than Jaden when Jaden was his age.

He is verbalising more now but I am still pretty paranoid because they do not sound like proper words to me. 

Words that we have taught him and he seems to know are:-

Bird

Poo

Shee Shee

Soup

Shoe

Socks

Cat Meow Meow

Bus

Flower

I

Milk (Buh)

Mango (Go)

Kor Kor

Car

Open (O)

Words that he verbalises properly is Car, Kor Kor, Go for Mango, Buh, O.

He says O quite frequently to me because he needs to me to help him open his toy storage zips or bottle caps. Buh is the most frequent word as he says that everytime he sees me sitting down. In fact, I am so scared of sitting down in mere sight of him as he would come running up to me, pull up my shirt, says Buh and helps himself to his milk. I always, always teach him how to say I want milk but he only says Buh. I remembered just last year, he says Please when he wants milk.. at least there was a please.. now, its straight to self-service with no question asked if possible.

I have also taught him how to sign thank you and make him sign while I say it each time I helped him with something. Hopefully one day, he will say thank you to me.

He also dances to high-5 songs, trying to imitate different movements the children makes. Loves Chuggington! He can sit quietly on the sofa and watch the whole 30 minutes of Chuggington. 

Just today, I walked around the house with my hands at the back and he, too, followed me from behind doing exactly the same action. 

He knows all our routine. 

When Hubs go to the keys area, he runs to the balcony door, waiting for Hubs as he knows Hubs is going to unlock the balcony door and go outside. When Hubs comes in, he runs to the kitchen sink and wait for Hubs because he knows Hubs is going to wash his hands.

When Jaden runs to the toilet, he will follow and try to hold Jaden's pants for him and hands it over to the brother when the brother comes out of the toilet. 

When Jaden washes his hands, he observes. When Jaden wipes his hands, he observes. When Jaden shakes his hands dry, he observes and he imitates all these actions when I asked him to do it. 

Today, he looked at me in the eye and said something that sounded like Poo! and he started to make that poo face. I thought I misheard him and that he was just pulling my legs as usual. He tends to be really cheeky too, you see because right after he made that poo face, he smiled at me and I did check his diapers, it was clean. Then I said, if you want to poo, let us go to the toilet and immediately he ran towards the safety gate at the staircase. He wants to go up to the toilet to poo. Then he started his poo face again and this time, it was for real. After he was done pooing, he pulled me to the plastic bags area, pointed to the plastic bag, and after I took the plastic bag, he pulled me towards the staircase again, indicating he needs to go up to bathe. I was pretty impressed!

When Jaden threw the diaper into the dirty laundry pile, Mason will take the diaper and put it at the sampahbag side instead. 

Oh dear, I am starting to feel sleepy now and it is already coming to nearly 2am. Time to call it a night for me as I forsee a loooong day for me tomorrow. Actually it is always a looooooong day for me no matter what day, just because I am a mother. *wink*

Good night peeps! 

Staying alive

Life is very fragile. One minute you are here, the other minute, you might no longer cease to exist.

An acquaintance I got to know a few years back, had passed away due to Denggi fever on Monday. It was just over the weekend, or a few days before the weekend, he has been updating his status on facebook rather often, stating his blood platelets are dropping and it just kept dropping and how he felt so cold. 

Both him and his son has caught the Denggi fever and had been admitted to the hospital. Luckily, his son recovered soon enough and got discharged. However, it was a total opposite fate written for him.

This got me in tears. In fact, I am not even that close of an aquaintance, but the virtue by just knowing him, and that his newsfeed kept popping up on my timeline, and it is always funny as he is a very jovial man with a good sense of humor. The news was really unexpected and most of his friends really thought he was trying to pull an April Fool's joke on everybody.. which for once, we would have hope it was all a joke despite being a bad tasting one. 

I hope he rest in peace and that the family will find peace with his passing in time to come. I am very sure, although he might have wished his life did not have to end that way, he would have rather it him than his son. 

Anyway, to cut the story short, please count your blessings everyday. For every day we are above ground, we should make the best of each day God gives to us. You never know what may happen the next minute. Life is that fragile. 

I try, my very best, to be grateful to be alive. I am, despite situations I get myself in does not stand in my favor. 

2015 First post

Hello!

I am back! Yes, after a whole year away from blogging.

I missed blogging so much as it is one of my only tools to help me remember things that goes on in my life.

Like most of you all would have known, we had a new addition to the family and that little boy, had my hands tied up, leaving me little time to myself, therefore with a few minutes spare of me time, I had used it to nap or shoving food down my throat to keep my sanity.

Mason is 15months old and here are some of his milestones. Let me jot them down before I forget again.. 

Started sitting up by himself at about 6-7 months old.

8-9 months, he has been pulling himself up and cruising around.

9-10 months, he started playing with his alligator push walker.

10.5months, he let go and started walking his first steps.. and walked ever since.

11 months old, he is now toddling around everywhere.

He naps about twice a day now, sometimes 3 if he is really tired. 

Once in the morning around 9/10am - 11.30/12pm and then maybe around 3/4pm or 6-7pm.

He still needs to direct latch to sleep at night or for naps. 

Sometimes he still gets up 2 to 3 times in a night for his feed.

Mason can point at things he wants, or things he want to show us.. he will also pull us towards it and then point at it.

Words

Daddy (sometimes it is used for calling me as his mother)

Mama

Mam mam

Jaaaaaayyy

Mmm / Buh (milk)

He can sign for more.

Sometimes he will imitate us word by word such as:-

Pau Pau (Pau) 

More

Dog (sounds like duck though)

Buh Bye

Mason can imitate quite a bit too now. He will make the vroom vroom sound when he is playing with toy vehicles, wave bye bye when asked.. and when he hears "see you later or good night", he will give a flying kiss, he will give kisses on the lips, pat his brother if asked to sayang his brother.

Mason understands quite a lot of things. For example, if he was to sit down in the W position and I ask him to sit nicely, he will correct his own sitting position. He will clean up if I say to clean up or pick up his toys. He will try to be cheeky and run away when I ask him to come here but eventually he will come towards me. Lie down, sit down, hands nice, quiet, pom-pom, take off pants, wear pants, drink water..

Mason is still very much a velcro baby but now, he is starting to accept others to carry him or play with him. He can now stay with his father much longer compared to him when he was just a newborn. He could not last more than 2 minutes then in his father's arms. As long as I am not in sight, his father is the one he will go to. Then there is either Kelly or my mother, whom he will velcro to if I am not there.

Mason loves Kelly so much that he will even not want me to carry him when he is in Kelly's arms, which is something that has never happen before. He will always run to Kelly when Jaden comes down from his room for a break from ABA.

Mason do look for Jaden to play catch or run into their 'clubhouse' to hide, he will pull Jaden to go with him, and if Jaden does not give two hoots, he will scream at his brother and try to catch my eye contact, and have me ask Jaden to follow him into their clubhouse. 

Jaden loves Mason a lot. He is always ever-ready to pull Mason to him and hug him and shower him with kisses. He lets his brother do whatever to him, except for sharing some books that he really likes. Then there will be some scuffles and shrieking and of course, the smaller one will end up crying.

We visited Dr Rajini just last week to check up on the development of both boys and it seems, Mason is developing his milestones like a neurotypical child (*fingers crossed!!!!*) 

His weight though was just 9.26kg which is on the low side. At his age, he is supposed to be weighing in at about 10kg so Dr suggested that i give him a little more fatty food to his diet. 

He is about 76cm tall for now.. still my little shorty but that is ok. 

He has 7 teeth now as we speak. :)

Health wise, he has been down with fever twice last year. Once was when his teeth was cutting out from the top, and that fever went away in a day's time. The second time he had fever was on a Saturday night, and when it was Monday, he was still hovering around 38.4. So I took him to his hospital paed and the paed said it was most probably viral fever and the only thing I can give him to control his fever from spiking was the panadol and to give him another day or so, which means a total of 3 days for the fever to go away on its own as that is what the duration of a viral fever would be like. True enough, the fever started going off by the third day and he was back being a strong little boy. 

I will always be the paranoid mother when it comes to everything concerning Mason's milestones until he can talk like any other neurotypical children. As long as there is no proper speech from Mason, I will always be paranoid. I have yet to vaccinate him, if that is what you all are wondering, that is why I am always trying to avoid crowded places or bringing him out so much. If those outings can be avoided, I would. 

*touch wood* Mason loves his food. He is not picky and he goes aaaahhhh everytime he spots us with food. He wants a taste of everything, which is good. 

Enough of Mason for now, Jaden's turn now.

Jaden now attends school on the other side of town, which is about half hour away from home if we do not get caught up in morning or rain traffic. If not, it will turn into a 45 min / one hour journey one way. He now goes to school for 6 hours, and everyday, he has an activity lined up after school hours as well. It is either ABA therapy for 3 hours after school, swimming or gymnastic classes. Now, before you go all whaaaat? gymnastic for boys? The class is more for him to be more disciplin, learn to take instructions and also building his motor strength which he is still very weak.

Swimming? because he loves swimming and that is one sport I can forsee him excelling in IF he does not keep wanting to drink the pool dry. *sigh* Jaden has got a very nice swimming instructor who is very patient with him and it seems that Jaden and her has now clicked! I used to think that she was not really the right one to guide Jaden, in terms of experience but after giving her a chance to prove herself, she proved me wrong. She seems great with him and now that she has caught Jaden's drift of learning, things are starting to look good at swimming classes.

School and home ABA has been training him more with oral mouth exercises, as they think he has shown some readiness to want to learn how to communicate effectively. It would really be a miracle, a dream come true for both Jaden and me if he can really communicate effectively. It is so frustrating as a human being, not being able to communicate. You can try, by not talking and then try to get the other person to understand your wants and needs, yet you are not able to draw, or write out what you want or even sign appropriately to get your message across. Therefore, this is really a very important thing for Jaden to learn. I am just grateful that he has quite a team of caring therapists to help him out.

School has helped me teach Jaden to go sit on the toiletbowl to poo. Dr Rajini has always said that this is the most difficult hurdle for autistic children, especially pooing. Once they pass this stage successfully, other things will come easy. This is because these children do not understand where their poo is going, how their body is reacting and they are confused and scared if it is a part of their body that they are losing and etc. Therefore, now that Jaden has learn to overcome this fear and finally poos in the toiletbowl, I have to buck up and step over my next fear. The fear of him going out without diapers and using public toilets whenever he needs to tinkle.

Since last year, from Jaden's 7th birthday, I have relax his GFCFEF diet and now, it seems he is eating almost everything except really sugary and msg-laden food but I am still keeping a tight watch on how he behaves and react to the food he eats daily. 

It seems that he suddenly discovered a whole new world, being allowed to eat almost the same thing as we are and he has his favourite, just like any other normal children; ice-cream, burgers, roti canai, noodles, cheesy pizzas, bread and cakes. *sigh* What have we been hiding from him all these while, he must have thought.

He does show reaction from time to time with some food he eats. Sometimes, it could be rashes propping up, most probably from eggs as these rashes appear within the first 48 hours of his food intake 

His favourite healthy food is still green vegetables and fish. He can finish off a whole fillet of salmon and more if he is allowed to. There is once when he finished off a whole fish, except for its head and tail, during a dinner. Luckily it was a family dinner with my parents, who understood Jaden and his behaviour very well. If it was others, they would have thought him to be a selfish greedy little boy.

He can now shake his head for no and nod his head for yes, quite appropriately unless he is being kancheong about something. Then every signing would appear just to want what he wants. Usually, he does not get it because he is just simply signing and we do not want to entertain that sort of nonsense. We will make him calm down, and let him think long and proper before conveying the right message across to us. 

There is quite a lot of things that Jaden can do, taught in school such as cleaning up his own food bowl after lunch, bathing himself, wiping himself dry after shower, washing his own butt after doing number 2, peeling his own fruit to eat, pouring out water to drink from cup yet he hardly does them at home. I need to change. I need to challenge him to self help himself more at home, now that he is growing bigger everyday, I stress out everyday and worry about his future, on how he can self help himself successfully especially when it comes to dealing with good hygiene. I am starting, slow but at least I am starting. Now, it is off diapers at home though at times, it is a crazy sight to see me dart between the two boys when both of them needs to use the toilet. 

I get very angry at myself for exposing him to tv since young and this is one mistake I do not want to make with Mason. Therefore when Jaden is not home, tv is mostly off and Mason plays around with his toys and pretend play with me using kitchen utensils or things he finds around the house. I am slowly trying to cut down Jaden's tv time too as he is really obsessed with TV. He will start whining, and then crying and lying around the house like a heroin addict that does not get his fix. Sometimes I tend to lose my patience and will punish him to stand at the naughty corner, until he calms down and stop crying. It is really really frustrating to hear him whine and whine and whine. *sigh* I kind of stop caning him now that he is a big boy and I do want to change my parenting ways towards both the boys. Mason is really observing what I do now and I do not want him to imitate me caning his brother. Just sometimes, Jaden can really drive me up the wall as he now knows what he wants, what he does not want, what he can do by himself, and well, sometimes just want to challenge me to see if I give in to him. Usually I win the fight. :)

School has given Jaden some homework to do at home during their first term break and so far, it seems to go on fine. I am going to add on more from my side but FIRST, I need to manage my time much more effectively, in terms of taking care of both their basic needs; 3 daily meals, shower, naptime for Mason, then housework such as laundry and dishes, then quality playtime with both of them. It is just so hard, so hard to do all these by myself sometimes but there is just no other way, so I will just have to bite my lip and persevere. I can do it! 

Jaden is still weighing in at 23kg and only 126cm tall. Dr Rajini said he is at the right percentile for his age, so I need not worry. I just have to try to increase Mason's weight for now. 

Guess these are what I can remember about my boys' development.. for now. 

Till I update again, hopefully now on a daily mode instead of just monthly or once a year. *wink*

7 years later...

I was rather heavily pregnant, running around town, planning my son's 6th birthday party, which was to be held at school and also at one of his favourite restaurant... and then, just in a blink of an eye, here we are celebrating his 7th Birthday. 

I can still feel myself waddling around with the baby in me kicking.. and now, baby is already 9 months old going 10 months old and my firstborn turns SEVEN.

This year, it was much more of a simpler affair.

I stop ordering GFCFEF (gluten free / casein free / egg free) cakes for him this year. Instead, I took a chance and just ordered cupcakes for his school birthday celebration and a proper birthday cake in theme with Roary the Racing Car cartoon. 

This year, I am not happy with my planning as it was almost too last minute. I remembered asking Hubby if we want to order custom-made cakes or just any cake from the bakery and he said simple will do. Turned out, I 'misunderstood' him. (WHICH I SWEAR is TOTALLY NOT MY FAULT!) 

Anyway, I found a baker who took my order but since it was a rushed one, and to accomodate my order, there is only that much that she can do for me, which I am totally grateful for, for her cakes were yummy. If you are looking for a baker, then let me recommend you Pinkies Cupcakes.

We celebrated his first party at school on the 26th September (FRIDAY). All I did was collect the cupcakes from the baker, bought about 6 balloons, party hats for the children and off we went to school. 

I was excited for Jaden as it would be his first after such a long time, having a normal cake, just like any other child would have. 

His teacher did quite a good job too, dressing up the area for a party feel. 

Jaden stood in front of the cupcakes, while his friends surrounded him and we all sang him the birthday song.. and soon, the kids were all over choosing which cupcake they wanted, as some cupcakes had the Roary print on them. 

Jaden absolutely loved blowing out the candles. This year is special in a way as he had another family member to join and celebrate his birthday together. Mason.

It was Mason's firsts too.. celebrating a birthday for his big brother who loves him very much.

The grandparents came down from Penang on Saturday afternoon to celebrate his birthday which falls on Sunday, 28th Sept.

This year, 2014, we held Jaden's birthday party at home. 

Food, we catered some Briyani, Prawn Masala, Tandoori Chicken and Fried Tenggiri Fish. Other than these, we ordered a Lok Lok truck to our premise and well, lets just say my guests were just very happy with the Lok Lok truck style.

This year, was quite a small and intimate affair which was rather stress free as Jaden was contained in a controlled environment, which he got to watch his videos, eat.. (grandparents were just feeding him whenever he wants food) and Mason, fast asleep napping away on my back, until it was nearly time for the cake cutting session. 

Decorations were DIY cutouts (inspired from Pinterest) and upside down balloons tied, which would not have been possible without the help of our lovely friend, Josie. 

I ordered Bacon Jam in mini jars to be given away to Jaden's birthday guests as party favors. For the children, each got a cartoon keychain and a bubble bottle. 

Jaden loved his candle blowing session and of course, the cakes he got to eat during the whole of that weekend.

It was indeed a happy weekend for him as he was KING for three days and with the grandparents down here in KL with us, he was pampered max by both of them.

This year is also going to be a little different for me as this year onwards, its planning for two birthday parties in a year. No longer just one birthday party planning. 

Happy Birthday, my love. Please know that despite all the scoldings and naggings, I love you very very much and my wish for you is to be able to grow up healthy, happy and be a good person.

Jaden and Mason... updates

Its been quite a while since I had access to the comp or the net as the laptop decided to heat up and we have yet to get internet connection from TM.

First, updates on Jaden:-

Jaden is progressing rather well in school, picking things up fast and he is showing much more awareness and emotions.v

He adores his little brother and will initiate play from time to time, kisses his brother, wipes his brother's drool away, share toys. In a way, Mason has triggered Jaden to observe and learn. In fact, Jaden is imitating almost every action that Mason does. Wondering will speech in him be awaken too?

Jaden has finally mastered nodding and shaking his head for yes and no although he is not using them appropriately yet. I know he understands but sometimes he just simply shakes or nod as an easy way out without thinking first. 

Every teacher/therapist of his has commented that as long as he takes his time to look and think just for a while, he gets almost every questions or task done correctly. *sigh* but he just can't wait and wants to rush things through and that brings us back to doing the 'wait' program for him once again.

Mason:-

Mason is now almost 7 months old. We started feeding him solids last months when he turned 6 months old. I started off with pureed apples and he did not show any sign of reflux and ate his food like a pro.

I was actually eyeing Beaba Babycook but a friend commented that our kids are not going to be eating pureed food forever, therefore there is no such need to get such a pricey item. It was going for about RM600-RM900. I then came across this blog and the mother bought Little Bean food processor and it seemed to work just as fine and the price is wayyyyy cheaper. So, guess which food processor I ended up with to prepare Mason's solids?

Mason has tried apples, avocado, pear, mango, strawberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, beetroot, sweet peas, beets+pear and bananas. 

He loves his mangoes and bananas and beets+pear. He was pretty much ok with all the food I gave so far except for beetroot. Guess the beets have to be paired with something sweet.

His bowel movements are looking great so far. It indicates what he ate the day before with the colours that comes out. 

Mason is very very attached and sticky to me. He still would not let others carry him especially when I am around. He tends to look out for my whereabouts and if I am a second out of his sight, he goes bawling for me. 

There are many controversial studies about putting babies in walker that will delay or interfere with their development but since we already owned one, we did put Mason in and boy, he mastered moving in it real quick! He keeps coming to the kitchen to look for me. Usually he will sit in it and move around near me while I quickly whip dinner up. It is just lately he would act up and cry himself silly, driving all of us crazy at home and instantly quiet down and smile the moment I give in and carry him. 

Sometimes I rather have it easy and just babywear him like a backpack. It kills two birds with a stone. He will nap away nicely while I get to get things done. The downside, we both sweat!

Manduca has been a really good investment. In fact, I think its one of the best investment I made so far when it comes to getting baby stuff. It has helped me in so many ways, from being alone grocery shopping, or handling both my boys outside alone, moving house, packing and unpacking.. preparing my cooking ingredients.. 

Mason has started to be much more verbal.

He has been mouthing " Ma Ma / Ba Ba / Ta Ta Ta / Eh and lots of other baby talk in between. I am just keeping my fingers crossed right now and hope not too high.. just in case.. just in case.

He knows where to look for milk, which is really cute.

He loves his bathtime now. Usually he is ready with smiles for me. 

Mason is now a wriggly worm when it comes to changing or putting on diapers. *sigh*

He started eating his feet last month at 6 months 20 days old.

He has just recently started to get up on all fours and now attempting commando crawl forward to reach for his things. He cries as if people abused him when we take things away from him (things he is not supposed to be holding on to).

**end of blogpost as this was supposed to be a drafted piece and I totally forgot all about what I needed to continue to finish this blogpost..**