My daughter’s 10th month birthday

I took a picture of my daughter earlier today for memories’ sake… it’s her 10th month birthday.

                                                

No, we didn’t go out but we did buy a cake from Red Ribbon. I absolutely love cakes from Red Ribbon! Everything is just temptingly delicious. My top favorite is the most popular Black Forest. Who doesn’t love Black Forest’s soft dark chocolate enveloped in thick white icing with ruffled chocolate strips? I just love the way Red Ribbon satisfy a sweet craving. But we didn’t buy my favorite instead we bought a cookie monster-like chocolate cake with vanilla strips and candy like toppings. This places a close second to Black Forest.

And for my daughter, we let her taste a tiny chocolate dripping. I know I should not pamper her with sweets at this stage or even in the next few years…

Earlier, as I was putting my daughter to sleep- I can’t help wonder how she is growing really fast! She is getting heavy and taller. She can stand by grabbing my hand and pulling herself up and takes a few steps if we guide her along. She claps her hands when she hears her father sing, calls me “ma-ma” and her father “ya-yi” and says “da-da-da” and “ba-ba-ba.” She also responds very well when we call her name (she started responding to her name at 7 months). Everytime we let her listen to songs, she would “sing” by raising her voice along with the music and stops when the music ends. Most of the time she would also “sing” along when her Daddy sings. And I think she would like to play the piano when she grows up because when I placed her in my lap while I played the piano she immediately placed her hands on the keyboard and pound the white keys. When I removed her, she cried out and wanted to go back and touch the keys.

I wish Danielle would stay as a little girl needing my help all the time. But I know this would be wishful thinking because soon she would start to walk, run and before you know it- a big girl!… I now understand that we as parents could not always hold our children’s hands. My mother has a favorite framed cross-stitch at home with these words about mothers: ” A mother holds her childrens hands for a while, but their hearts forever.” It is now my favorite too…

Watching Brainy Baby videos with Danielle

Most nights are spent watching educational videos with danielle. She stares at the screen and seems to understand what is going on inside the video. She hates it if her father sings along with the ABCs in her left brain baby video- she would shout and kick her feet to remind her father that she is concentrating. Just tonight, she sat infront of the computer sitting in her high chair for an hour while I was feeding her.

I marveled at how much technology is used now to educate little children. 30 years ago, teaching was done with a personal touch. While personal teaching is augmented by technology today, I still long for the days where there is little tv and more playing around with real kids. Today, you can read in the news that children in richer countries are getting obese because of little physical activity- add to that that injury caused by falls from trees are significantly reduced among children while there is a big increase in injuries caused by repetitive action done during computer gaming. Meaning, hands of these children are attacked by cramps, tendinitis and etc. because they stay too long playing computer games. And I couldn’t just believe it when I read it in the news! Computer-related ”injuries”? What’s next in 10 or 20 years from now?

  I appreciated how much the videos helped danielle this early. She can focus for an hour- even to the extent of not responding when we call her. But I still believed that nothing could compare to “personal” teaching. I don’t want danielle to grow up with most of her life hooked in computers. I know that it wouldn’t be impossible in the near future that everything will be digitalized, let alone scenes in Star Wars come to life- but for Danielle- I want her to grow up living a balanced life between real and virtual life. Just enough so that when she grows up, we can still spend time together not in the net but in real life too.