Kiran’s tiga bulanan (three month touching the ground ceremony) is only a few days away (Balinese months have 5 weeks) and it’s hard to believe he is three months old already. At the same time, it feels like he’s been here forever and I can’t imagine going back to a time where he didn’t exist.

Kiran is 7.3kg and decidedly chunky. He’s been in all his 3-6 clothes for at least a month and I think he’ll be into his 6-9 month stuff fairly soon. Most of his hair has fallen out and while he still has some, it’s so short and sparse that he looks bald in photographs!

I know you’re not supposed to compare your children but it is obvious even at this early stage how different Maya and Kiran are. Kiran is now pretty much sleeping through the night. He goes down at about 7pm and I don’t hear a peep from him until he starts fussing in the early hours of the morning – give him a quick drink and he’s back to sleep again until about 6 or 7am. Maya doesn’t even sleep that well now! He’s not so great at daytime naps and hasn’t got into a three nap routine yet. During the day he needs to be rocked pretty much constantly (in the bouncy chair with my foot while I work!) or he just wakes up straight away. Even with rocking he’s rarely napping longer than half an hour at a time at the moment. Maya has always been a pretty decent napper – guess it is better that he sleeps at night but makes it hard for me to get any work done during the day!

Kiran can now roll over from his back to his front but is still lying on his arm and has to get me to come and rescue him. I’ve been a bit lax with tummy time so don’t know if that’s the reason but his head is still a tiny bit wobbly and tends to drop to one side a little and bounce around when unsupported. Maya at this age was happily lying on her tummy propped up on her elbows but Kiran faceplants most of the time. He will hold his head up if he’s propped up on his front on a cushion but he’s not fond of being on a flat surface.

He is such a happy smiley little boy even when he’s sick and loves ‘talking’ to people. If he gets carried around or someone tries to shush him to sleep when he just wants to look at a face, he gets very angry and wailing ensues. He loves Maya and smiles at her most of all (apart from me), even when she’s poking him in the eye. When he’s mad he closes his eyes up tight, just like he did when he was first born, which makes the person rocking him think he’s sleepy and persist while he gets more cross. Don’t know if it is just because i can read his signals better but I am the only one who can calm him when he’s upset and he will just cry and cry if someone else is holding him and he’s not happy. We’ve been too afraid to leave him with anyone because of this so he just comes with us everywhere!

He HATES the car and will not sleep! Again, polar opposite to Maya who would sleep through every car journey at this age. He can be fast asleep in his car seat and as soon as we put him in the car his eyes will snap open and it’s not long before he starts fussing. This means that we can’t go on car trips (apart from very short trips) with both of them as they both start wailing (Maya gets jealous at me trying to calm Kiran and he won’t sleep!).

It’s so interesting watching his personality develop and seeing how different he is from his sister. Lots of exciting stuff to come!

Maya is 18 months and talking up a storm. She knows so many words now, I wouldn’t even try and list them. She’s talking in two-word sentences, pronouncing two-syllable words correctly (for ages she just said the last syllable) and attempting three-syllable words. She has a definite preference for Balinese and Indonesian but has already figured out to speak the English word to me. She’s also copying things we say with impressive accuracy and I’m going to have to be really careful from now on and stop swearing at Made!

She drinks water from a normal cup, eats yogurt herself with a spoon without spilling most of it down her front, can put on her own shoes and goes up and down stairs on her own (actually walks down them, not climbs – gives me a heart attack!)

Temper tantrums are still happening although it’s easier to work out what she wants now her language is so developed. A recent thing is that she doesn’t want to go in the bath, she doesn’t want to put her clothes on and when they are on she doesn’t want to take them off. She’s started picking out her own clothes too, favouring things with animals on. Exerting her independence I guess but a bit of a pain! Teeth brushing is still next to impossible but she will have a go herself with some coercion.

Favourite toys are her plastic animals and she loves doing all the sounds. She also likes pouring and collecting stones and playing in dirt (of course!). I don’t have much time with her during the day now I’ve got Kiran to look after which is a shame as she’s so much fun to play with. She loves her play doh and scribbles on the walls with crayon whatever chance she gets (and then has a tantrum when i take the crayons off her). She still loves playing with older kids and is not shy atall – she had all the kids running after her at the doctors the other day. We’re going to try and get her enroled in nursery soon as I think she’d really benefit from being around other kids and having some structured play opportunities.

At 10.5kg, Maya hasn’t put on any weight since her last appointment 3 months ago but has managed to grow an extra 3cm. She’s dropped down a percentile in weight and is tall and skinny compared to Balinese children her age (just slightly above average height on the uk and american charts). She’s still fitting in some of her 6-9 month clothes even! I have got her 18-24 month clothes out but most of her well fitting clothes are 12-18 months.

Her sleep is pretty awful at the moment and she spends half the night tossing and turning while crying in her sleep. think it is because she has a load of teeth coming through at once. From what she’ll let me see she has two top molars through and her top… what are they called? canines? the vampire teeth! are on their way out too.

Maya is so funny now and is doing new things every day. She loves Kiran and frequently gives him kisses and strokes his head as well as making silly noises for him. She has started getting a bit jealous and often tells me to give the baby to someone else when I’m holding him. I look forward every day to her silly antics and think this is such a lovely age despite the tantrums!

Wow, what a month. It’s really hard to believe that Kiran is one month old already and Maya is getting more and more grown up every day. I think it’s fair to say that this month has been challenging but nowhere near as hard as I thought it was going to be (helped of course by having lots of family around to help and a pretty laid back newborn).

So lets start with Kiran. He’s been chubbing up nicely the last few weeks after his skinny beginnings and already looks like a completley different baby. He’s outgrown all his newborn clothes (except the sleepsuits from mothercare which are massive) and I won’t be suprised if he’s close to 5kg when we go for his checkup next week (update – he was 5.6kg, haha!).

He’s been lifting his head from my shoulder since a few days old and he will lift it up for a few seconds when lying on his front (not a big fan of tummy time so far though!). Like his sister, he’s been able to roll from his back to his side pretty much from birth.

The first couple of weeks, Kiran pretty much just slept all the time, just waking for a quick feed. Even when he woke up he barely cried. This coupled with some nice stretches of sleep at night meant I’ve felt pretty well rested for being the mother of a newborn and toddler and I certainly didn’t experience the sleep deprivation I had with Maya. From about week 3 he started being more alert and a bit harder to settle and he certainly cries a lot more now, usually being awake for most of the morning (with short catnaps) and having an unsettled crying period in the late afternoon. He’s still a really easy baby though and is a fantastic sleeper at night! For example 2 nights ago he just fed at 10pm, 1am and 4.30am before we got up for the day around 7 and last night I swear I fed him at 9.30 and he slept the entire night! I even tried to feed him at 4.30 when maya woke up but he wasn’t interested. Well I’m not complaining! Maya too seems to be settling into the new night time arrangement although she much prefers me over made settling her. She’s got a lot better at sleeping through Kiran’s cries (helped by some white noise to muffle the sound).

Maya is most definitely no longer a baby and now a little girl who definitely knows what she wants! Tantrums have increased and there is a lot of screaming and throwing herself on the floor when she doesn’t get her own way. On the other hand I think she’s dealt with Kiran’s arrival amazingly and jealousy hasn’t been an issue atall (she gets more jealous of me hugging made!). She does get upset if she wants me and I can’t settle her because I’m in the middle of feeding Kiran but I think that’s perfectly acceptable. She has been fascinated by kiran from the start and usually the first thing she says when she wakes up is “baby?” She loves giving him kisses and we’re working on getting her to be more gentle and not hit his head/suffocate him with a blanket/scream in his face. She also wipes his mouth with a muslin and pats the cushion/bed next to her to show she wants him put next to her. Very cute . She’s started copying us doing a high pitched voice when she talks to him and sometimes calls him ‘ran’ instead of baby.

She’s really getting into imaginative play and pretends to feed her doll, brush its teeth and put a nappy on. She also likes ‘cooking’ with bits of plant and a plastic spoon. If she has her cuddly while she’s eating she’ll usually try to feed it some food too.

Books are a favourite after months of her not having the attention span for anything but pop up books. She’ll now go and pick out books and bring them over for us to read out to her (and throw a tantrum if we don’t immediately). She has her favourites, particularly books about animals (she’ll ask for ‘muls’ and then do the animal noises) and the ‘my new baby’ book I bought her when I was pregnant – she looks at the pictures and says “baby bath!” “baby poo!”

Maya has had a bit of a language explosion over the last few weeks and seems to come out with new words every day. Most words she only says the last syllable of but we understand what she’s saying. Her understanding continues to amaze me too and she can understand nearly every instruction we give her in either english or indonesian. For example the other day I told her to get her toothbrush out of the baby bag and she started looking for it in the main compartment. I said “no, it’s in the front pocket” and she stopped, went in the front pocket, took the toothbrush and started brushing her teeth!

Here are the words she says so far that I can remember (there were more but i lost the list when my pc died and now at 17.5 months her vocabulary is just ridiculous so it would be easier to write down the words she doesn’t know!):

English
cat
monkey
giraffe
animals
finished
no
hair
nose
mouth
hand
teeth
apple
baby
fish
nappy
bath
horse
poo
DVD

Indonesian/Balinese
pisang (banana)
nasi (rice)
takut (scared)
kupu kupu (butterfly)
ikan (fish)
buku (book)
api (fire)
buah (fruit)
enak (tasty)
kopi (coffee)
pipis (wee)
air (water)
mimik (suck)
singyak (don’t want)
makan (eat)
kapal (aeroplane)
buka (open)

bubuk (sleep)

kaki (foot)

obat (medicine)

People & misc
nyam nyam (food – she’ll say this if I mention “breakfast”, “lunch”, “dinner”, “snack”, “food” or “eat”)
brrm brrm (motorbike or car)
mama
papa
duta (cousin)
iris (cousin)
komang (auntie)
ninny (grandmother)

pekak (grandfather)

I Made Kiran Adnyana was born in Denpasar on Monday 30/1/12 at 5.06am, weighing in at 3.79kg.

Everyone was expecting this baby to be a little bit early like Maya but there was a bit of confusion over my due date as the original date was 6th February based on my first scan but then the doctor changed his mind to the calculated date of 23rd January which made me impatient as I felt like I had suddenly gone overdue even though dates from scans are supposed to be much more accurate.

For the last couple of weeks I’d been trying to walk as much as possible and been bouncing on my birth ball but hadn’t felt much more than dull back pain (which I’d had most of the pregnancy anyway) apart from some period type cramps after a 1.5 hour walk. On the Sunday I’d had a quick walk down to the shop but felt exhausted and like I couldn’t have walked for much further. I also suddenly felt huge that day and my dad’s wife also commented that I looked ‘very pregnant’ although we agreed it was probably just the dress.

At 3am on Monday morning Maya woke up crying and I settled her back to sleep and went to fill up her water bottle. While I was up I needed the toilet and then noticed I was feeling period type cramps. I was going to go back to bed but decided I’d stay up for a while and time them first just in case.

The first 3 came at 5 minute intervals which then suddenly changed to 2 and 1 minute intervals and started getting painful enough for me to start breathing through them. I’d been told to head to the hospital when my contractions were 10-15 minutes apart as I’d had a pretty quick labour with Maya so I decided I’d better wake Made up and get to hospital.

When I woke him up he started panicking a bit but i stayed calm and said we had ‘plenty of time’ and managed to put my contact lenses in, brush my teeth and put the last bits in my hospital bag even though the contractions were getting very painful at this point.

In the car the only way I could deal with the contractions was by leaning on all fours over the back seat and making “brrr” noises with my lips. I also kept screaming at Made that I needed a wee but when he asked me if I wanted to stop  I swore at him :p I was also not impressed with the roads on the way up to the hospital and remember screaming “who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to put fucking speed bumps around a maternity hospital?!”.

Arriving at the hospital I shuffled slowly straight into the delivery room, still felt like I was going to wee myself so I went straight to the toilet but I couldn’t go. I suddenly started feeling very strange down below like a load of pressure and I thought it was my waters about to go.

I was coaxed onto the bed for an internal check (I really just wanted to lean against the wall) and the midwife barely looked at me before she said I was already at 10cm and ready to push. I couldn’t believe I was already fully dilated but turns out the strange feeling I had was the head right there!

The doctor turned up and I did a couple of pushes which I felt weren’t doing anything and I asked if the baby was ‘stuck’ but the doctor said “no, the head’s nearly crowning!”. after only about 10 minutes of pushing I could see the head halfway out when my contraction decided to stop. I decided I wasn’t staying like that so kept pushing anyway and he was out! I was screaming so much when I was pushing that my throat was sore for ages after the birth

so 2 hours from waking up to baby being born, with only about half an hour at the hospital – not bad!

After Kiran was born I held him skin to skin for about half an hour but he was a bit shocked and just screamed his head off and didn’t want to feed – he didn’t open his eyes atall until about an hour after birth when they took him off to be cleaned up.

I also had a post-partum haemorrage and started losing a lot of blood but after being stiched up, stuffed full of gauze and put on a drip I was fine. I do remember shouting at the doctor a bit when he was stitching me up and had the bizarre experience of lying there twiddling my nipples as it was supposed to make my uterus contract and stop the bleeding (normally breastfeeding would do this but he didn’t want to feed!)

I felt a bit like I’d been hit by a bus immediately after the birth and Kiran was really sleepy and just pretty much slept for 12 hours without wanting to feed but he made up for it later at home! It was a bit annoying being attached to the drip as it made it pretty hard to do anything but I started feeling better fast. Made brought Maya to meet her new brother in the afternoon – she got a bit freaked out when she saw me at first and didnt’ want to sit on my knee but as soon as Made pointed out the baby she was fascinated saying “baby! baby!” and was fine after a couple of minutes. I got at least some sleep during the night (with maya I was too wired and kept checking she was still breathing so didn’t get a wink!). Sue stayed with me in the hospital so Made could go home and take care of Maya although he came back for a visit after she’d gone to bed.

We went home the next day and Kiran is now 11 days old and doing well. At his one week checkup he’d already gained weight and was up to 3.9kg.  The first day back from the hospital he basically sucked all day long which made my milk come in quickly but since then he’s been super sleepy and laid back and pretty much only wakes every few hours for a quick drink, although he’s been a bit more alert the last couple of days. He’s sleeping well at night and getting Maya back to sleep is much more of a problem as she’s used to me being there instead of Made! He’s really been such an easy baby so far and I’m just hoping it lasts because Maya can be a bit of a handful at the moment!

Maya adores her new little brother and hasn’t been jealous at all. As soon as she wakes up she asks “baby?” and gives him a kiss. We have to watch her carefully as she’s still too little to know when she’s being rough and has poked him in the eye a few times but I guess this will come in time!

For now we’re just enjoying being a family of four

 

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.

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

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!

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…

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.

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!

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!