Go-Anna!

Wow, what a jam-packed couple of months it's been! As always, Anna is doing great and learning to do lots of new things.

Standing

Although she'd already done it a couple of times by accident, the first time Anna really learned to stand by holding onto something is the day my friend Laura came for a visit. As most of you know, Laura has left Sydney for a 2 year adventure around the world. Before she went, she made sure that she got to spend some quality time with Anna and they both enjoyed it immensely. With Laura's encouragement, Anna started climbing onto her lap and then pulling herself into a standing position. After around 1/2 hour of practice, she learned to stand. It was as simple as that.

That was 2 weeks ago, and now Anna stands all day long! Pulling herself up on anything within reach. I just can't take my eyes off her in case she hurts herself. The most scary thing she has done was to pull up on the tray of her high chair and then letting her legs go - literally swinging on her highchair like a monkey bar!

Now Anna's fine-tuning her technique of sitting back down. Often she'd just let her hands go and kinda fall onto her bum but she's worked out that if she holds on with one hand it softens the landing :)

Crawling

Since my last entry, Anna has well and truly mastered the art of crawling. She crawls as fast as you can walk, so often she's fast at my heels wherever I go. She especially enjoys following me into the toilet as the sound of her hands on the tiles seem to be extremely amusing to her and both David and I enjoy hearing the pitter patter of those little hands. Like all babies, Anna loves to explore all those things that you want her to stay away from, like rubbish bins, and those nooks and crannies that you just can't keep clean. I found her chewing on a leaf one day and got to her just in time to pull it out of her mouth. That was just plain lucky, who knows what else she's been eating during her expeditions! I comfort myself by thinking that it'll help build her immunity.

First words

 

Although Anna has been the first to achieve a lot of milestones within our group of babies, she has been a little slow with her babbling. Then out of nowhere, she started saying 'wah wah wah' one night while we were at Cairns, which turned into 'ma ma ma' the next day and she has not stopped since! She seems to be adding to her repertoire everyday but 'ma ma'  and 'mum mum' are still her favourites, especially when she's upset and wanting a mummy cuddle. The closest she's gotten to saying 'Dad' is 'ba ba' which is 'Dad' in Chinese so David's happy with that. We're so proud of our multilingual child :)

Clapping

We've been singing to Anna ever since she's born and one of her favourite songs has always been 'If you're happy and you know it'. Now that she's figured out how to clap she really wants to show you when she's happy by clapping up a storm.

Drinking from a straw

Anna has enjoyed using her sipping cup for about 4 months now but it's time that we have an upgrade - to a straw water bottle. I thought it would be hard for her to adjust since she was rather attached to her sipping cup but within 2 tries she got the hang of it and started to enjoy her new found skill. Now she's excited whenever she sees me flip that straw out of the bottle. It never seizes to amaze me how fast she learns new things.

First holiday 

Another milestone this month has been our first holiday as a family. One of my oldest friends, Amy, got engaged and moved to Townsville in Queensland (3 hours flight away from Sydney) over a year ago. When she announced that she was getting married at Palm Cove in Cairns (the next major city north of Townsville) we jumped at the chance to travel with Anna for the first time. We've been to Cairns twice in the past, it's in a rather lovely part of Australia - where tropical rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef. Palm Cove was in fact our favourite beach in Cairns so we were rapt to visit there again.

This trip took months of planning as it was the first time flying with Anna and leaving her with a babysitter. For the early morning flight (6am take off so we were leaving the house at 4.15!) we woke up extra early to get all the luggage to the front door and only took Anna out of bed when the taxi was loaded up. For the flight we bought a new toy (Kerry the Fairy doll with lots of crinkling fabrics that Anna loves), stocked the nappy bag with lots of food and snacks and had boobs and dummies ready to help her with the air pressure on take off and landing. Anna was surprisingly well behaved on both flights - on the flight there she actually slept on both take off and landing; on the flight home she slept most of the way in daddy's arms. When she was awake she was entertained by staring at everyone around her, especially by those who wanted to chat to her.

Once we got to Cairns we were pleasantly surprised by our hotel. With the travel agent's recommendation we'd booked a room at one of many resorts on the Palm Cove main stretch. We arrived to find an ultra modern resort, with a huge lagoon pool (you know the type that snakes around the whole resort) and our room was more like a 2 bedroom apartment, with 2 bathrooms, living room and kitchen. It was nice enough to live in! Anna was so excited by the huge space that she now had to roam around in, especially by the tiled floors.

One of the attractions that we thought would appeal to Anna was the butterfly sanctuary located up the mountain at a little village called Kuranda. So that's where we were off to first. Anna was absolutely gobsmacked when she saw all the butterflies. With all the photos we took inside, she never looked at the camera once because she was too busy looking at the butterflies. One even landed on her!

The next day we decided to travel back into Cairns city centre to check out the huge baby pool they have in the middle of the city. But what a huge disappointment when we arrived to find that it was being renovated! So shortly after lunch we headed back to swim in our hotel pool instead. Although we were in the tropics it was the middle of winter after all, and water temperature wasn't exactly the most baby friendly. Anna had a good time getting her feet wet while watching a couple of bigger girls playing next to her. We made it up with a nice hot family bath back in our room afterwards, it was a nice novelty to have a bath with our little nudie since we don't have a bath tub at home.

Then Sunday was the day of the wedding. We took it easy with a lazy day at Palm Cove with a bit of time at the playground after breakfast, an early lunch and then it was back in our hotel to get dressed for the 2.30pm ceremony. Anna looked like a little doll with her brand new dress and headband and got lots of 'awwwww's from fellow guests. After the beautiful ceremony and group photos, it was time to leave Anna with the babysitter. Benny was an experienced sitter and she seemed confident about the night ahead. Plus Anna hit it off with her fellow babysitting buddy Casey (16-months old) straight away by pulling his shirt to stand up. So we left comforted by the thought that Anna would have a great night playing. But about 15 minutes later, we got the call we dreaded: "Your Anna is screaming her head off"! Oh no! But it was a simple case of being over tired so I was able to settle her into a nap within minutes, so we left her sleeping in her pram. About an hour later, we were called again - yes, screaming her head off again. This time we decided to take Anna into the reception with us until she falls asleep for the night. Even thought it was more work walking her around the hotel until she fell asleep, it was worth knowing that she wasn't upset anymore. We left Anna sound asleep in her pram with Benny again and the rest of the evening passed without incident.

So that was a little wrap up of our first holiday. Overall it was a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable 3 days for all of us. With Anna flying so well, we're tempted to travel again soon.

Until next time, GO HOLLAND!!!