Pris Adventures: Dear Sammy - 12 months / 13 months

Dear Sammy

You are officially more than one year old already! We had such a blast celebrating your birthday and you were such a star entertaining your many guests on that day. It's easy to see that you're an extrovert because of the way you become alive around people. It continues to astonish me on how you would turn, stare at strangers and smile at them in your bid to make them smile back at you. You truly are a sunshine boy. :)

Wishing you'd forever stay my baby!

What can I say? You're a toddler now. And not just age-wise, but you're also showing signs of wanting to exert your independence. These days, meal times are a real challenge and test of our patience because you've gotten pretty picky about what you put in your mouth! You hate your baby bib and would just throw it on the floor whenever you have a chance to - with all the food that is caught in it **argh!**

You started having an aversion to ready-cooked baby food in bottles so Mummy has had to crack her brains about what to cook for all of us. Anything cooked with rice is much easier to feed you than noodles.

Oh, your first two teeth popped up over the past month! It was such a "WOW" experience to see your two shiny whites pushing through the gums for the first time! The teething process has been pretty fine. You had your cranky days and all but thank God, nothing of those hourly-wake-ups at nights. You continue to sleep pretty well and for that we're soooo thankful.

At your last one-year check-up at the paediatrician, we found out that you have only put on 500 grams since May! Currently you measure 82cm (95th percentile) and weigh 11kg (60th percentile). That makes your BMI at less than 50%, a huge drop from the previous 90%. I think that's a good sign because that means you're becoming slimmer and no longer a mini sumo wrestler anymore!

You have entered into your second autumn so it's time to get out all those jackets! Thank God we managed to get quite a lot of hand-me-downs from Daddy's cousin's. His taste in clothes is pretty cool too, **phew** so you have been pretty much wearing your cousin's clothes.

In a cutesy bathing robe in Ikea

Everybody's so amazed at how you don't seem to experience separation anxiety! :) That's so cool because Mummy has been working on helping you to be more sociable with other people so that you're confident being by yourself.

Yesterday though, you cried when Daddy tried to put you to sleep and you only wanted Mummy to hug and cuddle you. It's nice to know that you actually recognize who your Mummy is. Daddy is going to be spending a whole lot more time with you in the coming weeks cos Daddy will be at home! Isn't that awesome?

Speech-wise, you're still blabbering a whole lot of baby language which we don't exactly understand. You sometimes call me "Ma ma ma ma" and Daddy "Da da da da" but we don't think you actually link the words to the person. Still, we think it won't take too long before you start "commanding" us around by calling us. :)

Motor skills-wise, you're crawling around a lot and are able to walk fairly quickly when holding onto my hand(s). You also managed to pull yourself up onto the bed a couple of times and are able to crawl all the way to the third floor - under Mummy's close supervision of course.

You are able to sort out different shapes of blocks into their respective holes and you particularly enjoy putting balls on ramps so that they slide down and hit a bell at the end of it - an amazing birthday pressie you got!

You're still a generally easy baby and today during a 10-km hike, everybody kept telling us what a fuss-free baby we have. We'll enjoy every good day we have with you in order to tide us through days when you have a meltdown when eating.

We hope you'd eat better soon again and this is just a passing phase.

Love you lots
Mummy & Daddy