Tales from a new life in Bali

It is Maya’s second otonan today, meaning she is one year old according to the Balinese calendar. There are 12 months in a year here but each month is 5 weeks, making each year 420 days long. According to the standard calender, Maya will be 14 months on Christmas day. Anyway, I thought it made a good opportunity for an update.

Hellooo toddler tantrums! We have had a few complete meltdowns over the last few weeks over silly things. She is also very quickly angry if we don’t let her do something she wants to do and she’s taken to either hitting us or slamming her hands down on the floor and screaming. I know I shouldn’t laugh but it is terribly amusing at the moment.

She’s coming out with all sorts of new words all the time now, although they’re nearly all indonesian (the only words she says in English are mama, papa, apple (which is the same in Indonesian anyway), cat and poo! Oh and “gee” for her ‘cuddly’ comforter and her latests one “wee wee” = DVD). She usually only says the last syllable so she’s still not really talking properly but we usually know what she means. in indonesian she can say makan (eat), nasi (rice), kapal (plane), buka (open), kupu kupu (butterfly), takut (scared), pekak (grandad in balinese), bubuk (balinese baby talk for sleep), Duta (my nephew and probably a few others that I’ve forgotten.

She’s still obsessed with “brrm brrm” (motorbike) and will have a fit if anyone goes out without her. we tease her by pretending to take her back into the house when she’s already on the motorbike which is very mean but it’s so funny to see her get angry. the other day made’s dad said ‘come on we’ll go out on the brrm brrm” but then obviously didn’t think she was coming so he left without her while she was putting her shoes on and she ran outside to try and get him and slipped in a muddy puddle and fell over so i was left with a very sad muddy baby and had to get made to take her out instead :p

every time she bangs her head now she’ll say “boo!” and hit her head with her palm to show us where it hurts. also she’ll sometimes pretend to hurt her hand or her leg and run over to us pointing out where it hurts so we can kiss it better.

Sleep has become a bit of a nightmare with her really fighting it the last couple of weeks. Made’s started putting her down for her morning nap as she’ll actually go to sleep faster with him now but night time is still really hard – she’ll be really sleepy and already closing her eyes when she’ll suddenly get up and start cryign. if i try and lie her down again she just cries more and it can take 2 hours or more to get her to sleep on a particularly difficult night. On the plus side she’s pretty much sleeping through apart from waking for a minute a couple of times a night to drink water (and it is hot here so i’m not going to deny her that). She’s had one of her mega 3 hour naps this morning which is good as we rarely get an afternoon nap these days.

Her appetite has dropped a lot since she turned one and sometimes she hardly eats atall but I’m not worried because I know she eats when she’s hungry unless she’s gradually turned neurotic about food by the inlaws shoving handfuls of rice in her mouth when she’s distracted (as is the balinese way of feeding children) and constantly going “ah ah ah” like she’s 3 months old and doesn’t know how to eat yet and being obsessed with getting her to eat more rice even though it’s the least nutricious thing on the plate. GRRRR! I try and avoid leaving them to supervise while she’s eating but it’s unavoidable sometimes. We’ve given up on using the high chair as she climbs out after a couple of minutes and she will tend to focus on one particular food each meal time – some times she’ll eat nothing but rice, the next meal she’ll only eat chicken. Her favourites at the moment are chicken, peas, green beans, cream crackers and most fruit. She’s also obsessed with these balinese cracker cake things that look like popadoms and will ignore all the rest of the cake and fruit from the offerings to get at them.

The last few weeks we’ve been leaving her out of nappies during the day and she’s started saying “poo!” and grabbing at herself when she needs the toilet. I think this goes to prove that everything i’ve read about children not being ready for toilet training before the age of 2 because they’re not aware of their bodily functions is rubbish spread by the nappy manufacturers to sell more nappies. They don’t seem to sell potties here so i’m getting one brought over from the uk in a few weeks and for now I’m just doing a little extra laundry.

Well i’m kind of confused actually how many weeks I am. According to my official due date taken from the first scan, I am 29 weeks and 5 days. However at my appointment yesterday the doctor wrote 31 – 32 weeks in my notes. Baby is huge already so we’ll go with that.

So here is another bump pic – today with baby Made on the left and then with maya at 30, 31 and 32 weeks

hmm…. i don’t remember feeling so huge at this stage last time so i guess i just feel bigger than i am or something? Kind of horrified to realise how much bigger I’m still going to get. I think I look more like the 30 week picture so maybe I am actually closer to 30 weeks. I am definitely suffering more than i was last time. I can’t sit at my desk for very long because my stomach feels all crunched up and also i’m finding the heat and humidity pretty much unbearable so i spend most of the day lying on the bed with the fan on.

I started this pregnancy at a slightly lower weight than with maya and put on weight more slowly at the beginning. that all changed during my ’3 breakfasts a day period’ and i went through a 3 month period of putting on 3 or 4 kilos every month – argh! luckily it seems to be slowing down, i haven’t put on any weight in the last 2 weeks and i’m the same weight that i was with maya at 30 weeks. Bubs is measuring 33 weeks and 5 days at 2.16kg and head is measuring 35 weeks – ha! i’m not too concerned as maya was measuring 33weeks 6 days (2.2kg) at 30 weeks and 35 weeks and 5 days at 32 weeks (2.269kg) and but it’s looking like we’re more likely to have a January baby than a February baby at the moment, but who knows! I’m going to have a wild guess and estimate birth date at 28th January so we’ll see how close i get!

In any case, this baby is probably arriving in another couple of months so I really need to get organised from today! I bought an exercise ball yesterday that i can hopefully use in labor (wanted one with maya but couldn’t find one that wasn’t stupidly expensive! got one in Ace hardware in the end) and i’m going to try sitting on at my desk to see if it helps. Raspberry leaf tea drinking also starts from today, as does yoga dvd (although it is hard with a toddler thinking you’re playing a game and crawling all over you when you’re trying to relax). Also going to start back with the hypnobirth recordings although i found it so boring last time and pretty much gave up towards the end. I’m going to buy some different ones this time and see if it makes any difference.

Things I need to do before 37 weeks:

• Sort out and wash baby clothes and blankets
• Move maya’s bed somewhere that she won’t get crushed if there’s a big earthquake and get her sleeping in it instead of taking up 3/4 of our bed (she slept through the night 7pm – 6am apart from waking up freaked out at about 10pm and needing a cuddle before she went back to sleep – bad dream?
• Buy newborn nappies and cotton wool and anything else i need for new baby (will have to find a list cos i can’t remember)
• Pack hospital bag and load mp3 player up with relaxing music and hypnobirth tracks
• Clean house
• Book hospital room
• probably loads of other stuff

In other news, Maya’s birthday shout out finally appeared on ohdeeoh – if i’d known it would take a month to do i would have submitted it in advance but never mind! you can see it here

Well I am very late with Maya’s 12 month update. Bad mummy! The truth is I’ve just been busy working and with other projects like my new website project toddler which I’m planning to use as a sort of online base for planning learning activities with Maya and dealing with other toddler stuff. Of course I’ll be keeping this blog to keep friends and family up to date (for the 3 people who actually read it) and use for uploading millions of photos. Now that Maya is 12 months old I won’t be doing monthly updates any more but I’ll still be updating on her progress regularly so everyone can keep up with what’s going on.

So… 1 whole year old! I know everyone says this but I really can’t believe how fast this year has gone and how much she’s changed. She’s definitely not a baby any more but  a little girl with her own personality and ideas.

To celebrate her birthday we had a little joint tea party with Iris, I ordered a cake, we dressed Maya up in her pink tutu and of course she got presents! Here are some pics from the day :

At 12 months old Maya is 77cm tall and 9.8kg. I’ve brought out a lot of her 12-18 month clothes but most of them are still way too big for her – she still fits into a lot of her 6-9 month stuff despite being in the 50-75th percentile for weight and 75-95th for height! The first walking shoes we bought her in the UK (size 4.5) are starting to get a bit small and I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be able to wear them. They were comically way too big when we bought them!

Maya’s vocabulary is really starting to come along, despite her learning 3 languages at once. So far (in the order she learned them) she can say mama (although she rarely bothers unless she’s really tired or upset), papa (and often points to made’s shoes or something else of his and says papa),  widgey (the dogs name but she uses it for any animal), brrm brrm (motorbike), kapal (indonesian for aeroplane), apple and down (when something falls down or she drops something). i’ve also heard her say kunci (indonesian for key) and ninny (balinese for grandma) but she doesn’t say them regularly. She also makes a high pitched meow noise when she sees a cat. Yesterday I was singing the teletubbies song – “tinky winky! dipsy!” and she went “la la!”

her understanding is pretty good now and she can follow basic instructions like “give this to papa”, “put it in the bin” and “kiss the baby” (kisses my belly!). Her understanding is still much better in indonesian i think but we’ll try and tip the balance a bit when my parents are here :p

She is starting to get very naughty and will get angry if you try to take something off her or stop her doing something. Sometimes she’ll do something that she knows is naughty and look at me just to see what i’ll do. She gets furious if Iris tries to take one of her toys or her sippy cup but she’ll also take anything he’s got. she’s also started hitting people when she’s angry with them!

Favourite activities include playing hide and seek (she thinks we can’t see her when she stands in the corner so we walk round calling her name and she stands there with a naughty grin and then peeks out and says “rah!”), playing football, playing with water, putting lids on things and taking them off again, taking objects out of a container and putting them back again, carrying really heavy things, putting on shoes, going for rides on the motorbike.

The last couple of weeks she has pretty much lost all interest in food and is not eating much of anything. She won’t tolerate her high chair for longer than a couple of minutes so most meals are spent with her running round while nibbling on something in her hand. She also prefers eating my food (much to the distress of made’s parents who think it’s too spicy) and ate almost half my lunch with a spoon herself yesterday.

I’m now finished completely with breastfeeding and she had her last night feed a few days after her birthday. She now has a sippy cup of milk before her morning nap, one before bed and has sips from a bottle of water if she wakes up in the night. She’s pretty much dropped her afternoon nap but sometimes has a 3 hour nap in the morning which is nice! The last week or so she’s been getting up every day around 4am which is not so nice! I tried putting her to bed later but it didn’t make any difference so i guess (i hope) it’s just a phase.

So to sum up Maya’s first year:

First roll from front to back: 6 weeks

First time roll from back to front: 3.5 months

Started army style crawling: 5.5 months

started proper crawlling:6.5 months

First time sitting properly unassisted: 6.5 months

First solid food: papaya

First tooth: 7 months

Started pulling up to standing: 6 months and 3 weeks

Started cruising: 7 months

Started standing unassisted: 8 months

first step: 9 months

Started walking: 9 months and 3 weeks

First word: mama at 6 months

And here are 10 things you may or may not know about maya:

1. She has a double hair whorl, like only 5% of the population:

2. She’s scared of planes flying overhead – she used to come running for a hug but now she just points at the sky and whispers “pal!” (kapal means plane in indonesian) in a worried voice

3. she hates walking on sand and cried and refused to be put down the last time we went to the beach

4. She loves the jingle from dewata tv and will stop whatever she’s doing when she hears it

5. She loves apples more than anything and has been able to eat them whole from 8 months old, despite having only 4 teeth.

6.She gets really excited every time we go to the doctors despite having an injection most times she goes

7. She waits till people are gone to wave byebye to them

8. She’s a real tomboy and much prefers boys toys – especially cars

9.She can’t sleep without her ‘cuddly’ and if you give her it she will immediately start sucking her thumb and looking sleepy

10. She’s supposedly reincarnated from Made’s older brother who died when he was a baby

This month we also had a big earthquake – 6.2  or 6.8 depending on the source. This wasn’t maya’s first earthquake as we’ve had a couple of small ones since she was born but it was the biggest I’ve ever felt, the biggest that everyone in Bali remembers and the first time that I’ve had to run in and grab a sleeping maya for fear that the building would come down on her! luckily no damage here but a fair bit of damage to some buildings in the south. Luckily the epicentre was out at sea or we may not have been so lucky.

That’s about it for now. I’m way overdue for a baby/bump update so will try to do that in the next week or so!

Things people never tell you about having babies no. 137: your hair will end up like this -

You see the thing that happens when you get pregnant is that your hair growth slows right down. This is why pregnant women are said to have nice shiny thick hair as there’s no new hair pushing the old hair out so it basically doesn’t fall out like it would do normally from brushing, washing etc. There’s also the added benefit of only having to shave your legs once a month.

The problem is that after you have the baby and your hormones stabilise, your hair starts growing and falling out again. From the time that Maya was about 6 months old I had handfuls of hair falling out every time I was in the shower and clouds of it falling around me every time I brushed it.

This did not bother me, despite Made’s claims that Iwas going to go bald as my hair is rather thick and there is a lot of it. However when new hair started to grow back underneath I ended up with this stupid micro fringe / mullet type look. I’ve got a new layer of hair that is a few inches long and not just at the front, it’s all over so it sticks up in all directions, will not lay flat and basically looks like I haven’t brushed my hair in a few months.

Now I’m pregnant again I’m stuck with it as it’s growing really slowly and i’m probably going to be hit with a second hair loss and growth after the next baby is born. I dread to think what I will look like then…

A month away from her 1st birthday and we are definitely in toddler territory. Maya now walks (and runs!) everywhere, talks constantly to herself and us and to any available object that can act as a telephone, screams if she doesn’t get something she wants immediately and shouts “nahnahnah!” if I try and make her do something she doesn’t want to do.

She is doing new things every day and copying us lots which can be hilarious sometimes – made was doing tai chi style exercises the other day and maya started doing deep breathing. She can now clap, point, brush her hair, turn on the tv and change the channel, change the songs on made’s mp3 player speaker thingy and go “shhh” with her finger to her lips. She tries to put on her own shoes and also our shoes, has favourite songs that she dances to and has taken to running and hitting us with various objects  while shouting “rah!” (which i really should start to discourage but it’s so amusing!).

She’s talking constantly although most of the words don’t mean much to us i’m sure they do to her as she will insistently say the same thing while pointing and then scream if we don’t get what she wants. Her understanding is increasing a lot, particular in indonesian. She understands “give food to the bird” and she will give me something she’s holding if I ask for it. No new words as such this month although she does go “ehoh” when she pretends to talk on the phone. She also likes singing to herself.

Sweeping and throwing/kicking balls are still favourites, along with putting things in containers. she loves putting the lid on her sippy cup, putting it in the cup holder on her high chair and putting blocks in the box of her shape sorter (although she hasn’t quite figured out the idea and prefers to take the lid off so she can put them straight in the box rather than through the hole).

She never crawls anymore, walking everywhere and has found some new fun exercises like putting her hands in the air and spinning round in circles until she falls over and doing a sort of forward roll. she still loves pushing her wooden truck but will now drive it full speed into the wall and continue pushing until the back goes up in the air and she falls over sideways, spilling all the blocks out.

Finally managed to cut out all her daytime feeds so she’s only breastfeeding before bedtime and a couple of times in the night now and on formula with a bit of cows’s milk during the day. next step is to cut out either the bedtime or night time feeds which isn’t going to be easy! She’s quite an independent sleeper anyway and rarely feeds to sleep – she rolls away from me when she’s had enough! but think it’s going to be hard to get her to sleep without feeding her altogether. She can drink through a straw now too.

Thankfully her napping seems to be back on track with one morning and one afternoon nap although the last week or so, one of those naps has become very short but she’s probably just needing less sleep during the day now. We get her to sleep in the pushchair which is cheating a bit but works well enough.

This month we took her to the zoo for the first time, which she loved – going “OOH!” at all the animals and walking round pushing her buggy. We also took her swimming for the first time which she was not so impressed with and clung to me like a limpet! Although she did enjoy the free cake and drink.

Looking forward to the joint first birthday party with Iris next month although not really planned anything yet. We’ll probably just have food over at the wooden house or out somewhere as i don’t know enough people here to invite for a big party! there will definitely be personalised cake and presents cos i already bought them but not sure which I’m going to give for her birthday and which I’m going to save for xmas yet. I also just ordered a bunch of new books so will see if i can hold on on giving them to her for another month.

Wow, half way through already. This pregnancy is going way too fast!

Went for my monthly checkup and scan last week and it seems that baby Made is a BOY! Doctor repeated several times that it wasn’t 100% certain but it looked pretty clear from what I could see and he wrote the symbol for male in my medical notes too. In any case, we’ll get confirmation when I go back next month.

So yay! I really would have been happy with another girl too but I know Made wanted a boy and this means I get to do some shopping! Although I’ve been very disappointed with the range of baby boy clothing so far apart from the really expensive scandanavian labels. I’ve already bought a couple of bits from H&M on ebay though and my mum has been shopping too. I didn’t get much unisex stuff for maya (the stuff I do have was all presents so thanks everyone for being more sensible than me!).

At a bit of a standstill on names. I still really like the boys name we had picked out for Maya but Made has gone off it and says there are only 2 names he likes, both of which are Balinese, long and sound ridiculous to my english ears. I have come up with a list of lots of alternatives but he’s refusing to consider anything else for now. Sigh! I just want a name that is short, easily pronouncable and won’t be too out of place in the uk, preferably with Hindu/Sanskrit origins. He is not willing to compromise so far!

I’ve been feeling movements for the last week or so – I’d forgotten how faint it starts out! no doubt he’ll be kicking me to pieces soon enough though. My jeans have reached the uncomfortably tight stage so i’m going to have to dig out all my maternity clothes. Skirts are still ok for now though luckily. At my checkup I’d put on 4kg in the last month! although not that suprising considering the amount I’ve been eating – i’m constantly starving and usually have 2 breakfasts.

No boy bits photo this month (i will ask for one next time) so here is a freaky alien baby instead!

Ok, as promised here are my 17 week comparison photos :

excuse the cut off heads – I was up all night with a sick baby and looking about as rough as it gets.

So we have 17 weeks with maya on the left and 17 weeks with made, today on the right. I see…. not much difference. So there goes my theory about showing earlier this time around.

So not much to report pregnancy wise. Still no symptoms apart from slight heartburn in the evening some nights which i didn’t get until much later last time. Clothes still fit but getting tighter.Still no movements felt.

Hopefully a more exciting update in 2 weeks when we have our gender scan!

And at 10 months I have a walking baby! After taking her first steps just after she turned 9 months but then not really bothering for weeks, I thought this would be going in the 11 month update but just a few days ago Maya figured out how to take 3 or 4 steps in a row, then more and now there’s no stopping her! She’s walking everywhere now and as soon as she figured out she could hold things if she walks instead of crawls, she needed no encouragement. She’s still very wobbly and falling down a fair bit but she’s got so much better in just the last couple of days, I think she’ll be a pro in a couple of weeks.

Sweeping is still a favourite activity and if she sees a broom she will head straight for it. She has also learned to throw her ball (although backwards over her head) and in the last couple of days is trying to kick it. Carrying things is of course popular now that she can walk and she seems particularly fond of shoes. She LOVES turning pages in her books and lifting the flaps in the lift-the-flap books and will be quiet for 5-10 minutes just turning pages. However if she can’t do it she gets frustrated and has a mini tantrum.

She talks to herself constantly now and can say “mama”, “papa”, “widgey” (the dog) and “brrm brrm” (when we give her a ride on her toddle truck). She also definitely understands the indonesian words for bird and kite because she looks for them in the sky if somebody says them. She’s been going through phases of favourite sounds with her current being “boka boka boom!” I also taught her to make a noise like a red indian by putting her hand over her mouth and she thinks it’s hilarious.

Maya now has 4 teeth and knows how to use them! She eats vast amounts of rice and other current favourites are cheese and peas. She still loves guzzling water from her sippy cup and will gulp down a load before opening her mouth wide and going “ahhhhh!” in an overly dramatic way. I’ve been trying to stop breastfeeding so we’ve been giving her formula twice a day with not so much success. She progressed from spitting it out to drinking most of it and I’d dropped her afternoon breastfeed but the last couple of days she’s been refusing again so I feel like we’re back to square one. She loves offering us her food now and her sippy cup and thinks it’s hilarious if we pretend to take a bite or a sip. She also sometimes pretends to give us something with an empty hand and bounces up and down laughing when we pretend to be annoyed.

Napping has gone to hell in the last couple of weeks. I half expected this as she’s used to breastfeeding to sleep but we’d got into a nice routine of giving her milk in the afternoons and then putting her to sleep in the buggy. However then her morning nap which she’s always gone down easily for has been getting later and shorter and some days she’s not having an afternoon nap atall. on the days when she does have an afternoon nap, she won’t sleep until after 9pm so i can’t win! I’m sure she is too young to be dropping to one nap and although this is all she’s had some days, she’s really grumpy most of the day so i’m pretty sure it’s not enough sleep. She had been sleeping at least 3 hours during the day but now I get an hour and a half at most if I’m lucky (she’s slept more today but I think she’s just wiped out from the measles vaccine). So we’re currently looking for a pembantu to watch her during the day so I can actually get some work done.

Poor little monster did not have a very good day yesterday on her 10 month birthday. We took her to the hospital for her measles vaccination – she got bored sitting in the waiting room for an hour and a half and then a nasty doctor stabbed her in the arm. We then went out for dinner at pizza hut where the high chairs were inexplicably low and had had the trays removed. I couldn’t even pull it right up to the table because the legs were in the way. So she managed to head but the edge of the table right on the bridge of her nose and cried so much she vomited up everything she’d eaten. She was shattered and fell asleep in the car on the way back home but woke up at midnight with a fever from the vaccination and couldn’t go back to sleep for 2 hours despite being too tired to do anything but lay in bed and whimper. I ended up putting her baby einstein dvd on twice until she fell asleep again (after giving her calpol).

She is 9.3kg now which is in the 50th-75th percentile and just slightly less than cousin Iris who has finally overtaken her. Her height is 74cm which is in the 75th-90th percentile and waaay taller than most Balinese babies. Even the doctor commented on how tall she is. She’s grown 5cm since the last time we went! Oh and she has a new smile now! She scrunches up her nose and shows off her teeth and looks so cute and cheeky!

Not quite sure why I’m updating now as it probably means I’ll have nothing left to write about on Maya’s 10 month update but I just felt like posting so….

I woke up this morning with a definite bump which has stayed there all day. I keep staring at myself in amazement. I’m not quite 16 weeks and didn’t start showing with maya until I was about 6 months so I think this proves that she pretty much wrecked my stomach muscles. No photo yet but I will do one at 17 weeks to compare with the first bump photo from last time round.

Maya took her first 2 steps nearly a month ago when she was 9 months and 4 days old since then she has taken a step or two occassionally but generally not been very interested in the whole learning to walk business as crawling is so much easier and less distance to fall. Today however she’s been taking 3 or 4 steps in a row and will walk towards me if I put her down and encourage her over with something shiny. Exciting! No video because my camera is crap in low light (and that’s the final straw, I’m buying a new one asap – never buy a panasonic camera!) but here’s a picture of her attacking papa with a feather duster.

and just for good measure, maya and puppies! – does it get any cuter than this?!

Let me introduce you to baby Made – Maya’s adik or little brother or sister, currently cooking away in my belly approximately the size of a pear. We’re expecting him/her in February 2012 – Maya will be about 15 months so I’m going to have my hands full!

To be honest, it was a little bit of a suprise when we first found out and it took a few weeks for me to get used to the idea but I’m now really excited and looking forward to having another tiny person in our lives and I’m sure Maya will love her new little sibling (although I’m hoping she’s learned to be a bit more gentle by then judging from the way she was playing with the puppies yesterday – eek!).

This pregnancy is just flying by so far and I’ve had basically no symptoms. I feel even less pregnant than I did with maya. I do feel like I am going to start showing sooner, although my clothes are still fitting fine. I won’t be doing weekly update photos (too much hassle!) but I will do a few to compare and contrast with my pregnancy with maya.

So so far, so good, no sickness, no cravings, no back pain yet (although I am expecting this later, I had it from week 12 with Maya). I’ve put on a couple of kilos but still weighing less than I did first time round so hopefully I’ll put on less in total too, although I guess the fact I’m still breastfeeding is helping a lot and I’m planning on gradually stopping (I don’t want to be feeding 2 at once!)

Can’t believe we’ll get to find out the sex in just a few weeks, fingers crossed. I know Made and his family are hoping for a boy but I’d be equally happy with another girl. Better get some ideas for names too – we’d already picked out Maya for a girl and one boy name at this stage before!