my little man

I love this picture. Although it's a blurry foto snapped on my mobile, it really really captures what Val is all about these days. He loves standing up on the bed, hanging onto the window grilles to peep at the world outside especially when it's dark and the twinkling street lights and enthralling headlights of cars whizz by. His favourite activity is to play peek a boo with the curtains. They're not exactly the cleanest things around! So i try to put them out of his way, but sometimes when someone forgets and lets the curtains down, Val's the first to dash over to tug at them.

Val's picking up new words too. Of course he can't say anything, but we know he knows what they are cos he looks at things we call out. Like with 'fish' he turns to our windchime that has an assortment of wooden fish, the same with 'fan', 'sarong', and 'ball'. I play the Your Baby Can Read video every morning after his bath time cos it's the only thing that keeps him still long enough for me to put on his clothes. Two days ago, when the children in the video said 'point' and a baby demonstrated the action, Val also raised his right hand and pointed his finger to point! it was very funny. and since then, he does that without fail whenever Baby Lauren (that's the baby who points her finger) appears. It's weird how there are some words he picks up very fast, some he just never. Like the word 'Star', i pointed out the neon glow-in-the-dark stars i have on our ceiling one night, and he caught on immediately but he just can't figure out where's my nose, ears, eyes and mouth. Anyways, he'll do so in his own time. It's just funny to see his antics.

But it ain't so funny when it comes to eating and sleeping. He loves his organic cereal but screams and cries each time he is put in his high chair. Even the belt on the chair doesn't seem to contain him. Lately, he's developed a very bad habit of wanting to crawl around and eat. grrr...... it's a battle each time we feed him. As for sleeping............that's his biggest enemy. he now refuses to get into the sarong for day naps, he would twist and sit up and threaten to topple out of the sarong altogether. very dangerous. Yah, i never got round to the whole 'cry it out' sleep training i guess. But really, he can cry and cry for a LOOOOONG time without yielding. a few nights ago, he cried from midnight till 3 am for god-knows-what reasons, and then finally i had to offer the breast before he would sleep again................ARGGH.... these days, i just don't fight it anymore. when he wakes up at night, i just shove my boob to him and he's back at sleep quickly. Honestly i really don't have the energy to battle it out with him. So i do look on at envy at those moms who blog about their babies sleeping through the night....... i just have to accept that Val's just going to do that at his own time.