Indar and I had embarked on a new strategy to make Yauyau open her golden mouth (the fear of her not talking is killing me). I remembered Indar telling me whenever she brought Yauyau to the library (she always goes there to borrow Indonesian magazine or books), she would make a lot of silly noises, disturbing the peaceful quietness of the place. She complained to me: sangat malu! Thus, Yauyau doesn’t get to go there with her anymore.

Project library starts today! No more aimless roaming in the mall, Indar will bring her to the library instead. The children section is not much different from a noisy children playground, so the little monkey can make as much noise as she like (hopefully!). And Indar is really very resourceful. She would spy around for mothers who were reading to their kids and sit Yauyau near them! Haha, she sat in for several story telling sessions. I must really thank those friendly mothers, who kindly read louder so that Yauyau could hear them. What a gracious act!

The result: she got excited as soon as she saw the numerous children in the library and started her ohhhs and ahhhs like in the past, though she still wouldn’t babble to us. Well, at least it is a good start. And I better stop being lazy, start bringing her to the library myself, read to her, and also maybe to other interested kids. I want to be a kind mother too…heee.

Found this photo while sorting huge number of pictures taken. What a sight, and could be scarry too if mistaken the food for blood! Carrots everywhere, with some finding their way into her nose. The situation would be more chaotic if she chose to sneeze at this moment.

Two little frogs at home. Yauyau has been doing the frog style crouching for a few weeks. Pushing herself up on all fours is not the difficult part. The real challenge is getting the right technique to move forward. After rocking herself to and fro violently, she realised she still couldn’t move forward! Tired of the self created turbulence, she finally leaped forward and landed flat on the floor, back to pushing herself backward, and snaking in circles. Limited mobility, but good enough for her to get those chewable objects laying around.

Wonder when she will venture her first crawl. However, she manage to push herself from her frog position to a sitting position today. Seems that unsupervised tummy times wouldn’t be safe anymore.

Is this what parenthood is supposed to be, a state of never ending worries? It started way before the baby was born. First, you were concerned if you will be able to conceive. When you were expecting, like all expectant mothers, you started worrying if the baby is going to be healthy. The numerous checkups and scans didn’t help much when the gynae kept telling you the baby was small. Then one day, she suddenly discovered the head and stomach proportion to be out of range and advised an amniocentesis to be done, to check for downs or any other chromosome defects. It was like a bomb exploding in the head. The two weeks of waiting for the lab results was torturous. Glad everything turned out fine. Then, it was back to more worrying if the baby is going to be healthy, free from any congenital problems.

The baby finally arrived, and all is well, but the story never ends. You started worrying if there is enough milk to satisfy the baby. When she got home, you begin worrying about breaking her neck or her limbs. You worry when she cries too much, sleeps too much, eats too much, cough too much, watches TV too much, stays inside aircon room too much, out in the sun too much. Then you also worry when she eats too little, plays too little, laughs too little, sleeps too little….

Now, another new worry for me. The baby seems quiet lately and refuse to babble to us anymore when we try “talking” to her. Yeah, she will look at us, smile, laugh, play, cry, make funny sound to herself, but just won’t “coo” and “ahhh” like what she used to do in the past. Is this some kind of red flag raising for autism?