Mayenne @ Ten

I always wonder who created the phrase "Time Flies...", which is definitely overused but oh so true.

Mayenne turned 10 months a couple of days ago.... 10 months already! I couldn't believe it myself. I'm so glad that she has grown in every sense: physically, mentally and emotionally. While we are able to observe some of her developments on weekday evenings and weekends, it is usually PoPo who tells us what new actions Mayenne exhibited and we hope to catch her do the same stunt/trick again. (Sigh.... I wish could spend more time with her).

Physical:
She is proficient in crawling now, and she is also cruising - walking sideways while holding on to the edge of the sofa or her cot for support. More often than not, she will do a "look ma, no hands" stunt and get everyone flying towards to save her from a sore bottom, or worse circumstances.

She can wave goodbye (with her right hand) when prompted or on her own eg when the MRT passes by. Her left hand does a "money-come" action (curling of fingers with palms facing up).

She loves to throw and see her pingpong balls bounce away and chase after them. When the balls rolled below a table or chair, she will go down on all fours and bend down to see where the balls are (who taught her that?!!!).

She can hold her own bottles and sit on a potty and give a good poopoo.

She will raise her arm for you to take off her top, and lift her legs when you are removing her shorts, so that her leg will come out of the leg hole. She would sometimes shake her feet so that the shorts do not hang around her ankles.

Mentally:
She loves to read. Whenever there is book in sight, she will grab it and either open it herself or catch our attention to read to her. When we reach her favourite part of the book, she will lean forward like to take a closer look and she will use her finger to point that page. Really cute. She can also remember the ways the flips in the flipbook uncovers (eg top-down, left-to-right) - she charges to open the flips, and don't you help her; she'll be upset!

Whenever she wants a walk, she will look for GongGong, as my mum couldn't really carry her for long due to her condition. She will look for the maid when she has poopoo-ed (the maid is the one who bathes and cleans her up). She may be in the midst of playing with my mum, but after crapping in her diaper, Mayenne will either crawl or walk to the maid in her walker, and start to pace in front of the maid. Damn funny (can imagine the look on my maid's face).

She sways to music and swings her arms in the air. This is usually also accompanied by butt shaking and bobbing.

Emotionally:
She knows what 'No' means and if she's naughty and continue to do what she's not suppose to do, we will raise our voices a little (so sounded a little more fierce), she will look up and her eyes will start to well up, her nose will turn red and she'll pout her mouth. The whole ensemble on her face is so pitiful, that you really don't have the heart to scold her again. But one thing about Mayenne is that she recovers very fast, and she will be back to doing her own things the next second (usually not after we have given her hugs and kisses).

When we show a stern face for some wrong-doings, she will look at us with her "I'm sorry" look and tries to "suck up" to us by trying to make us laugh again with her silly antics, like blowing bubbles with her saliva, giving the broadest smile she could give, poking you with her finger (I think she is trying to tickle me). It's really hard to keep that stern face.

My mum ie Popo always boasts of how Mayenne can do this, can do that, at this tiny age, which makes me wonder if my brother and I were totally stupid as toddlers, cos my mum never mentioned that we are like that. Either she couldn't remember or becos Mummy and Uncle Cedric are really duds then. Ha.