I tip toed out of Sophie's bedroom after hearing her snoring thinking what I would give to have an evening to myself?

Although she slept at 10pm, I'm thankful that tonight wasn't a tearful night.

So I kick back, boiled some hot water, made myself and Alexis a cup of milo and slowly savored my egg tarts from KFC and wrote this entry.

Reminding myself that when there are days when she's more difficult, I got to trust that God is in control of my situation. Although motherhood is tough, Sophie is God's precious gift to me and Alexis. That while the laundry pile gets higher and higher, the floor's not mopped and the dishes not washed, I'll gladly give it all in exchange to see Sophie light up my life with her smile, her laughter, her giggles.

A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

-- Anonymous)

How can you not love this face?

Girls just wanna have fun

Kidding around at the airport last Sunday

Sophie giving mummy a"punch"

and here's a "Super Poke"

But we always make up after that

This is to remind myself that even though there are tough days (like today), I still have a very cute baby who brings me joy and laughter. That despite her cries and complains and what have you... she doesn't do them unless she's over tired, hungry, over stimulated, teething, need a change in diaper, and the list for the million and one other things go on...

She's only 8 months and a week. The journey of motherhood has only barely begun. I pray for patience, patience, patience. But God could you hurry a little :P

Sleeping Dairy

We hear the term sleeping like a baby ever so often. But I wonder if the person who came up with that ever had a baby.

We all know that in the first few months of a baby's life, they sleep nothing like what expect of babies. They wake up every 3, 4 hours simply because their stomachs are so tiny that they have to be refueled with milk ever so often. Only when they hit the 3, 4 month will they have a chance of sleeping through the night.

Sophie asleep in the car seat

For Sophie, we used to call her the sleeping beauty because she's hardly awake. In fact when she was a new born we could hardly see her eyes open! We used to think it's because she was a bit premature at 37 weeks. But it seems like other mummies whose babies are 37 weeks or earlier are not as sleepy as Sophie.

But as time goes by, we come to realize that sleep is something that Sophie struggles with the most.

So when she reached 8 months we decided that we need to teach her to sleep independently and so we started the sleep training. But since I find her cries too heart wrenching, I left it to the Daddy. So far it's been the 6th night and I must say that things are improving. The time taken to get her to sleep is slowly getting shorter and shorter.

Hopefully she'll learn to be more like Daddy and love sleep and have no difficulty sleeping on her own.

Sophie and Daddy

Here are the two of my darlings having a fun time together.

Sophie loves to be high up on Daddy's shoulder.

Tell me how can I not love them more and more each day?

This photo was actually taken on the day that Sophie baby made Daddy very angry because she refused to go back to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. Daddy tried patting her in his attempt to make her sleep after she got up from her night waking. But no her cries only got louder and louder... In the end, Mummy had to intervene and push the cot into baby Sophie's room and nurse her back to sleep, leaving Daddy to go back to sleep.

But all is well again between Sophie and Daddy in the morning as you can tell from the pictures above.

Guess there is just no way you're stopping the love between a Daddy and his little girl :)

The ever-changing baby

Last week, we noticed that Sophie has made some changes (again).

No longer is she able to play quietly on her own! We used to take great delight in the fact that we can leave her on her own to play while we run around the house doing chores or have our dinner or watch the tv. These days, Sophie will kick up a big fuss or cry when she notices that she's left to play on her own or simply not giving her attention. You can only imagine our frustration and exasperation when we have to always be around her. And even when we come to her, we'll have to pacify her for "abandoning" her.

Some have labelled this behavior as "Separation Anxiety". And I'm suspecting that this behavior has also lend itself to her night waking as well.

These few night she has been waking more often in the nights as well. I'm ruling out hunger since I usually feed her a bottle of milk before she sleeps. So it's either the same separation anxiety symptoms creeping into the nights or because she cant fall back to sleep after sitting herself up in the cot. Whatever it is, we've got to remind ourselves to be patient with this little baby of ours.

This Friday, she'll turn 8 months. I'm sure that more changes await her and us! We reckon that she'll start to crawl properly or maybe sprout her first tooth the next month. Maybe even learn to pull herself up to stand in the cot - which can only mean more night waking!

As for now, I'll do my best to keep calm and be patient as we go through her every milestone with her.