Jade is 10 month today! Time does fly after the first few months. Now she's so much fun to play with. Here's a brief update on her.
1. She stopped nursing. I never tried to wean her. There was a few days when she was eating a lot and I didn't have enough milk, so we introduced formula. She liked it and started eating more and more. I was too lazy to pump so my milk production gradually reduced to a point where she really couldn't have a full stomach. After going half and half for a few weeks, by this week, she's mostly on formula. It's kind of nice cuz I don't have to come home and feed her during the day any more, but kind of expensive :-) Oh well the price of convenience.
2. She's standing on her own all the time now. I think she'll start walking soon. She is very comfortable walking along the couch and anything she could hold on to.
3. She understands so much of what we say now. I have to make an effort to speak Chinese to her when daddy's around. I'm not sure how she processes the bilingual thing. I think she knows "mommy" and "mama" are the same person, so are "daddy" and "baba". She waves and says "byebye" when people leave. I decided not to teach her "zaijian(Chinese byebye)" cuz it's even too hard for daddy to say :-) When I say go get the ball in Chinese, she would go get the ball. Maybe it's because of the context, but I think she understands :-)
4. She babbles A LOT! Can't tell if it's Chinese or not. My mom thinks it's Chinese :-) She points to things and babbles, which sounds like "zhege (This in Chinese)", so I always follow up by asking "zhege ma (this?)"
5.She is still tall, she's in her 70% with her weight, so not bad.
6. She's a great eater. She loves everything I give her, when she's hungry. She struggles sometimes when daddy feeds her :-) So far she's had almost every kind of vegetable and fruit I eat, which is A LOT. So far, no allergy, no dislike. Oh i think she's not a big fan of boiled eggs, which may or may not be because she was not hungry the one time I fed her that. So I'll have to try it again. A lot of the times, I discover that she would eat the food she didn't like the first time if I feed it to her again. So I always try multiple times with one food. So far her favorites are bananas, mangoes, watermelon, c antelope, honeydew, avocado, butternut squash, sweet potatoes. peas, broccoli, eggplant... Wait a sec, I think everything could be her favorite as I was typing :-)
7. One of the arguments you would hear in a bilingual family is what animals sound like. John laughed at me so hard when I said dogs say "汪汪wang wang"; okay I think I can give it to him with the dog sound. But ducks definitely say "gaga (2nd up tone)". This one should be mine. Jade loves ducks. I take her to the duck pond next to Brick Oven and she gets super excited and want to jump in the pond :-)
8. Jade loves auntie Megan. We're so blessed to have her and Neil live with us, so Jade can hear more Chinese and gets more love :-) Megan is great with Jade; she has so many fun things to play with her. She would scan her hand and get a picture of her hand printed :-) Jade will miss her so much when we don't live together any more.
9. Jade's been sleeping pretty well. I give her a bath at 7, feed her and read her a few books, then she would play on her own for about 10-20 minutes. I put her in her crib at 8 and she usually plays in there for a few minutes before she falls asleep. She has been waking up just before midnight to eat, then she sleeps till 6 or 7 in the morning, have a bottle, and goes back to sleep till 9. She takes a nap at 12 and 4 for about an hour each. We're trying to wean her on her night feeding. We'll see. I don't mind it that much. I'm usually awake any way.
10. We started including teeth-brushing in her night routine. I don't know why we need to do that cuz she's definitely just using a toothbrush as a toy. She would chew on it for a few seconds and then throw it away. I do have her rinse after she drinks milk though. But why bother? She's gonna lose these teeth anyway. I guess it's just starting a habit for her. But I never brushed when I was a kid, and I didn't have teeth problem.
Happy 10 months, sweetheart!! Can't wait for your first birthday!!!!
