Louna and the Bébé, Atbp

When asked what's inside maman's tummy, she would answer bébé. Whether she understands what that means or not, I really can't tell. She would caress and give a kiss to the bébé every now and then. She calles her dolls bébé. She knows that little babies are bébés.

Will she be a jealous ate or will she be playing little mommy to her sister?

September. Transition time. The 2nd bébé will arrive. Ate Louna will start pre-school. She would probably change her nanny (but we're not sure yet). All complicated changes for a little toddler.

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Louna's been waking us up at the wee hours of the evening lately. She's not wearing diapers anymore so she has to go to her potty or else, she would wet her bed. Even with diapers, she would wake us up anyway. So Maman and Papa thought of a wonderful solution.

They removed the protective bar from the bed and brought the potty trainer just near it. Result? Not working. She's waking us up anyway. She's actually half-sleeping when she's doing her potty at night.

The good thing about this solution is that she could go in and out of bed alone now. We're still hoping that she would do her potty alone one night, without asking Papa or Maman to accompany her, just like on daytime.

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The fan.


Check out who's Louna's hero at the video below.

Ate Louna..

...soon!
.. and the little peanut starts to be active inside playing hide-and-seek at 12 weeks and 3 days old (6.7 cm crown to rump with heart rate at 160 bpm!).

Louna will officially be called ATE on September 25, 2008.

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*Ate is a title used to address an older sister as a sign of respect. In Filipino families, elder brothers or sisters are to be respected always - the notion of hierarchy is observed even among siblings.

*Até est un titre pour s'adresser à une soeur ainée comme un signe de respect. Dans les familles philippines, des frères et les soeurs aînés doivent être toujours respectés par les cadets - la notion de hiérarchie est respectée même parmi les enfants.

Then and Now

The rules: If you still keep your baby’s first 3 days' photos, we would love to see them. Label them as 1st, 2nd or 3rd day. After that, please post the most recent one, one photo will do. You can post as much as you want though. I’m sure you will realize and tell yourself "seems like yesterday".

Thanks for tagging me Bochie, it was fun to re-discover the un-glamorous me at 1 day old..


.. then my Asian facette at 2 days old..

.. then the innocent me at 3 days old. Did you notice how my eyes grew bigger by the day?

And now, I know what fashion could do for me. A gumamela flower and voila!

8 Facts About Louna

Deye just tagged Louna to reveal 8 facts about her. I think these two girls know each other pretty well, not physically, but through their respective blogs. But we will nevertheless join the fun. Here we go:

1. She slept through the night at 3 weeks old. Mellow and easy. She would then wake up with an angel smile.

2. She was never a cry-baby. She would throw tantrums every now and then but not the typical toddler who would cry out loud, kicking and biting all people around him, throwing toys at his parents and all those full action drama. She's the kind who would sulk for minutes. If you try to approach her, she would suddenly turn limp voluntarily and we end up finding our daughter lying on the floor. Not a sound. Not a look. Her I-dont-exist attitude. Then, after several minutes and after saying us sorry to her, and her sorry to us, everything goes back to normal. She only cries when she's being scolded and she knows that she did something bad.

3. She started walking with her toy stroller and finally got rid of it at 14 months old.

4. She could manage to eat on her own at 16 old.

5. She was weaned from the bottle at 22 months old without the fuss. She wanted to be like adults around her too early in life.

6. She said goodbye to daytime diapers at 23 months old.

7. With the powerful spell of Nefertiti, the most beautiful queen of Egypt, we went and came back from vacation with the same number of diapers. Yes, she said goodbye to night-time diapers at 27 months. After all, to be beautiful, she has to be diaper-free.

8. Some people around me starts to think that she's a late talker and that starts to annoy me, and more so, stress me out. So allow me a minute of venting please.

I've always believe that each kid follows his own curve of developmental milestone. A kid could be slower in some things than his peers and faster in others. To each his own timeline, no fixed schedule. Louna met her pediatrician a month ago. He asked several questions and she correctly answered them. His pediatrician has not expressed any concerns about her speech development and even thought that she's in the normal range.

Ok, alright. It's true that she's not really making a lot of effort to form sentences. She has her own way of communicating and most of it is physical. If she wants something, she would normally do it on her own (like taking her own yoghurt from the fridge and taking a spoon from the drawer, or even doing her potty alone). If she can't do it alone, she would try to explain it, and in case I don't understand her, she'll take my hand to show me exactly what she wants. So why bother? She could make herself understood anyway.

My assessment of her situation is that we never baby-talked to her and she's raised in a bilingual environment. She probably needs more time to be able to form conversational speech. I think that she's just much more laid back in this aspect than others and as a result will do it on her own time.

Louna talks. We just don't understand everything she says. I think that both parties need to add a little effort to make conversations more comprehensible. Albert Einstein started talking at 4 years old. Who knows, we might be raising a super-bright mathematician or a scientist.

And here's for the sweetest smile tag.