Watch Nat's new moves

Watch Video 102 of Natalie just chilling and playing around with her cousin Vanessa. It's a longer video (3 min) because she does a few things in this video that have never been captured before on film, including:

- Crawl like a "real" baby (on hands and knees... no more army crawling!)
- Shake her head no when she doesn't want something or want to do something.
- Pull herself up from crawling to sitting to standing.
- Follow her big cousin Vanessa everywhere.
- Grab at things she wants.
- Give something away by extending her hand and opening her palm.
- Kneel.

She is learning so much so fast, it's hard to keep up!

Family photo

We finally got it! A photo of Gramma Tong with all her current grandchildren looking cheerful (except the one that's sleeping and too small to smile yet). The secret to our success? Try many times, take lots of pictures, and be sure to bribe them with food :)

Summer's Birthday Party

Yesterday, Natalie attended Summer's birthday party. There were lots of babies in attendance. See pics below.

Babies, babies, everywhere.


Here are some babies chilling by the snack bar. The birthday girl, Summer, is wearing a white tutu and crown hairclip. She looks like a real princess for her birthday.


Natalie helping herself to some snacks and chit-chatting with her friends.


Natalie posing with her friend Olivia. Even after most babies had eaten their fill and left to explore the room, Natalie stayed standing next to the food table.


And she kept eating.


There were two birthday cakes. One for babies, one for mommies. The babies gather around the table to sing "happy birthday" to Summer. Can you find Natalie?


Natalie keeps eating.


Her friends Olivia and Sienna want the mommies cake (which has some alcohol in it). Natalie keeps eating. She finished a whole piece of baby birthday cake, too. What a piggy!

Copycat

Natalie can copy sounds (only ones that begin with certain letters). Watch Video 101 of Natalie copying only a couple sounds. She can do more, but is easily distracted by the camera. When watching the video, beware of blair-witch-eqsue videography... Natalie keeps grabbing the camera!

Thumbsucker

Natalie loves to suck her thumb. When she was little, we would just pull her thumb out of her mouth when we didn't want her to suck. She would hardly notice and not try again until later. But now that she's older, Natalie screams when we try to pull her thumb out. Uh oh...

Happy with her new toys

This morning, Natalie sat on our dining table and played with our laptops, mouse, ipod, iphone, and camera. She was really happy to have our "grown up" toys to play with.

Banging Baby

Natalie loves to "hit" things. Give her something big and she'll open her palms and bang on it to see what sounds it makes.

Yesterday, we went to visit her great maternal grandmother who is over 90 years older than Natalie. While there, a big metal tin attracted Natalie's attention and she hit it a few times and then hit it some more because it made a loud, hollow, ringing sound. Later, when we opened it, we realized Natalie had turned all of her great-gramma's delicious eggrolls to crumbs!

How old is Natalie's new friend?

Today Natalie, Tracy, Lisa, little cousin Vicky, and Gramma Tong went to lunch with the Island East mommies group at Chiu Chow Garden. It was really nice to meet and catch up with everyone! Natalie enjoyed bread, sticky rice, pork, and even had a few raisins from her friend Ethan.

Also, Natalie met a new friend (below). Can you guess how old this baby boy is? To give you perspective, Natalie (on the left) is now 9 months and 3 weeks young.



Can you believe the baby boy on the right is not even 4 months old yet? Unbelievable! And we thought Natalie is a beast...

Brunch at Cru

Yesterday, we went to brunch and shopping with Lisa Yee-yee and Gramma Tong (Por-por). Natalie likes to feed herself chicken and bread, but once you give it to her, don't try and take it away or she'll be upset and wave her arms in the air.

See Video 100 of Natalie munching away at Cru. Her mouth is full of chicken because she stuffed it in there when we started playing "take the food away from the baby". Poor Natalie! Don't worry, after the video, we let her eat and enjoy in peace.

Posing with Daddy.


Natalie is firmly holding onto her chicken.

Oompa Loompa?

Natalie's new baby cousin Victoria is a real cutie. Like Natalie, she's been gaining weight very quickly and put on 3 pounds (almost 65% of her original weight) in just 1 month!



Victoria also has loads of hair (more than Nat). Sometimes when you catch her at the right angle, she kinda looks like the oompa loompa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! (see below)

Sleepy Bum

On Saturday night, we visited Jason and Corinne's fabulous new apartment for dinner, Cashmere Mafia, Taboo, and Cranium. It was fun! Halfway through the night, Natalie fell asleep and when we went to get her, we found her like this:

The Little Artist

While accompanying us (daddy Clark, mommy Tracy, auntie Serena, and uncle Angus) to MegaBox for lunch and skating on Saturday, Natalie had her first taste of colouring when the CPK staff gave her some crayons and a paper to color. Natalie loved it! Now she's colouring at home, too. Her medium of choice? Our sofa.

Here is Natalie with Suparti (our helper) pretending she's not trying to eat the crayon.


Natalie sticks out her little tongue while concentrating on bringing crayon to paper and not the other way around.


Do not disturb: Little artist at work.

Music Baby

We've decided to sign Natalie up for KinderMusic classes. She really enjoyed the trial class and she seems to really love music. She shakes her head (a bit violently) when we encourage her to "Dance, Natalie, dance!". It'll also be a good opportunity for her to learn to play and socialize with other babies.

Here is Natalie enjoying playing the piano with her mommy Tracy. She's got a good ear (definitely talented), but her little fingers don't have a good reach just yet.

Smartie can click

Natalie is learning something new almost everyday. Here is a list of most of the things she knows how to do so far:

1. Pull herself up into the standing position using most things (furniture, people, even her wobbly exersaucer).
2. "Give" us something she is holding in her hands by extending her hand and opening her palms (and then she cries if we don't give it back right away).
3. Feed herself bread, crackers, fruit (even slippery mangoes and small blueberries), and pretty much anything we put within her reach.
4. Stretch her arms out when she wants us to carry her.
5. Copy sounds we make, including high pitched screams and B, M, P, H, and D sounds.
6. Firmly close her mouth and shake her head whenever we try to feed her something she doesn't want to eat and push your hand away when she's full.
7. Make a clicking sound with her tongue. See Video 99.
8. Play peekaboo.
9. Recognize her favourite toys that are peeking out from under a blanket or behind a box.
10. Choose between toys by reaching into the toy box and picking out her favourite ones.
11. Splash water during bathtime and say "Blah!" (copying us when we say "splash!")
12. Call out when she wants attention. She no longer cries when she wakes up, but will call out and know we will come running to get her.
13. Put herself to sleep by herself in her crib at night.
14. Hold her own bottle to feed herself formula.
15. Take off her own hat (she hates wearing anything on her head).
16. Shake hands and high-5.
17. Recognize people.
18. Show her emotions including happiness, sadness, anger, excitement, curiosity, and confusion.
19. Hang on to us when we carry her around.
20. Be cute. (But then again, she was born that way. And no, we're not bias!)

Cutie

Watch Video 98 of Natalie laughing like crazy while playing with Lisa Yee-yee. She tries to run away, but is holding onto the couch and ends up running on the spot. Also, look at her TWO BIG front teeth when she laughs. Natalie now has 4 teeth in total (2 bottom, 2 top).

Natalie posing with her PorPor at cousin Vicky's moon yuet.


Cutie with her mommy.

Chilling Saturday Afternoon

This weekend, Natalie did the following things:

Ate lunch with her mommy and aunt Vivian at Cru. She sat next to Vivian and had chicken, bread, avocado, and mangoes.


Went shopping. Here she is waiting in a comfy chair in the shop while aunt Vivian tries on lots of pretty dresses. But Natalie prefers the coat hanger instead.


Had coffee with mommy, aunt Vivian, and aunt Serena at Antiques in Central. She had come chiffon cake and strawberry & cream tea.

Gymboree

What with the baby flu scare in Hong Kong, Natalie was the only baby to attend Gymboree Music today. Watch her in Video 97 playing with the big drum all by herself.

Yummy pears

Watch Video 96 of Natalie happily munching on a pear this morning.

Natalie's new favourite toy...

Mommy's pearls.

What happened?

Something happened today during breakfast. It was like a nuclear bomb or something. Maybe Natalie can explain it best...

Natalie says: Mommy has been letting me feed myself lately, but only finger foods like cookies and fruit. Here I am innocently eating a papaya after breakfast.


But during breakfast, for some reason mommy threw her hands in the air and said, "Ok, ok, you can grab the spoon, but I'm not wasting any more tissues on you!" and then she stopped wiping my mouth and hands, even after I waved my arms in the air and got bokchoy and sweet potatoes on my fingers.


I can't help it that I like to rub my face and pull my hair.


Now that breakfast is finished, I'm really enjoying my papaya, but my hair and face feel kinda funny.


Kinda of sticky.


I'm sorry... am I a mess?


Ugh, what the heck is THAT?