I'm a full-time mummy

Ben turned 16 months old yesterday and based on Baby Center's milestones for 16 months old toddler, I checked it against Ben and here are my observations:

Excerpts from Baby Center post:

"Your toddler is still likely to explore her surroundings the way she has for the last few months — grabbing random objects, inspecting them closely, putting them to her mouth, banging them on the floor. But you'll also notice that she likes to challenge her physical limits. She knows she can walk, so she wants to try to carry a heavy load, like a box of blocks, while she's at it. She's confident that she can climb up onto the sofa, so she'll want to push a chair to the kitchen counter to climb higher and investigate what's up on the counter tops. If you haven't already done so, now it is essential that you childproof your home. The kitchen can be a particularly dangerous spot, so get into the habit of cooking on the back burners of the stove, turning pot handles inward and out of reach of groping hands, and locking up any dangerous cleaning products and medicines rather than leaving them out in the open."

My observation: Hey, Ben doesn't need to wait til he turns 16 months old to have all this grand ambitions. He has been climbing stuff and getting real adventurous since he started walking at 1 year old! Just take a look at the pictures below:

Scary right? This is one of the pictures in my 'caused-heart-attack-to-mummy' album of all the pictures I took of Ben. He actually stood next to the table, climb onto our bed (mattress on the floor, we took off the bed frame when Ben started to crawl long ago) then leaned over to the table, pushed himself up, using his elbows and legs, he managed to crawl up and climb onto the table. My spiderboy! And picture below was taken few days ago during our church service on Sunday where Ben actually carried the ride-on toy himself...

"Your 16-month-old is becoming more adept at using her hands and fingers. She may be able to stack two or three blocks into a tower, and will delight in immediately knocking it down. When you read books, she'll insist on turning the pages for you, and by now may be capable of turning one or two pages at a time instead of simply flipping from front to back. If you hand her a crayon, she'll know exactly what to do with it, but will probably scribble on anything that's in front of her — books, furniture, and walls included — so "coloring" is an activity that you'll probably want to monitor closely. She may even be able to insert a round block into the proper hole on a board with various shapes."

My observation: Every morning, Ben will hand carry (sometimes hug) the big bag containing 100 pieces of Mega Blocks over to our bed (Ben co-sleeps with us btw) and demanded one of us to play with him. So far, Ben can stack 1-2 blocks but then he is still at the stage of knocking things down.

And also sitting on the blocks that I built for him.

I have yet to get Ben to do coloring although he did enjoyed scrawling over the book and paper with color pencils when we were over at our friend's house few weeks ago to visit them and their daughter (about 2 months plus older than Ben).

"Your toddler is ready to learn to say "the magic words" — please and thank you — at least some of the time. You don't have to push him to say them in every instance — he's noticing when other people use them and the pleased reactions of grownups when children use them."

My observation: Oh well, Ben's vocabulary so far consists of 'papa', 'mama', 'nen-nen' (for my breastmilk), 'mam-mam' (for eating), 'ter-ter' (for water), 'tah-tah' (for dog), 'birh-birh' (for bird) and the rest are pretty much on hand signals and sign and body languages still. He does understand what we told and ask him to do. I guess it doesn't hurt to try saying and teaching him to say 'please' and 'thank you' even though he is not talking much yet.

Oh well, that's about it for now. I can't believe my little boy is 16 months old now! And did I mention that I'm still breastfeeding him?

Just yesterday I was playing with Ben and all of a sudden, I had a flashback memories of my childhood... and in that instant, I remembered one childhood memory which I had totally forgotten all about... it was a horibble, horrible one... I still couldn't remember much in details but enough to write up a post of it so that I can and from now on will remember such thing happened to me long, long, long ago...

What happened long ago (I think I was about 8-9 years old) was I cleverly shoved something into my nostril and it got stuck inside. YEAP... SHOVED into my NOSTRIL and cleverly got it STUCK. Up until 5 minutes ago, I don't even know the name for the object that was stuck in my nostril, so with a little bit help from dear Google and its image search, I finally found more info to put into this post.

My dearest blog readers, that object that I shoved and then got stuck in my nostril is what we called in Malay - biji saga or the saga seeds.

This is how it looks like from the tree. You can read more about it from this link: http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/plants/saga_tree.htm

And when you plucked off the seeds, this is how they look like:

(*Both photos taken from Google image search)

Look at that bright Ferrari red colored seeds!

How can one resist from shoving it into their nostril, right? . . . .

Ok, ok... thought I could  try and  justify my stupid act or something...

So anyway, I remembered my mum always brought me back to her hometown whenever I had school holidays and I love spending my holidays in her hometown cos I get to see my cousins and we always had this wild crazy adventures during the daytime.. like cycling all over the village, playing cooking (or what we called 'masak-masak' in Malay), catching grasshoppers and wading into the rivers to catch TADPOLES and small fishes... crazy huh?

So anyway, one time I brought home these lovely red saga seeds and I'm not sure what I was intending to do but I ended up with one of the seed in my nostril. Heh... I have no idea how I managed to get it out of my nostril but I definitely DID NOT call for help from anybody else.

I mean, yes, at the tender age of 8-9 I am THAT naive and stupid to shove the saga seeds into my nostril but I do have the tiny bit of wisdom NOT TO humiliate myself further (or probably scared of getting scolded by my parents for my heroic evil kenievel act or something) I do remember trying to press my nose bridge in order to push the seed out and also blowing my nose hard. Am not sure whether any of this method works cos I guess part of this horrible childhood memory was still being supressed by my brain... Sigh... what a memory... 

Of course, now that I remembered part of this memory, I do get worried that Ben might one day do this and shoved something into his nostril. Gulp...

The product I'll be reviewing this time is:

Yeap! A board book by the title of “Alternative ABCs”!  I  have  been  given  this wonderful opportunity to review this board book through the Business2Blogger program and the contact person, Ms. Sara DeGonia is a wonderful person to work with! She has been providing me updates and help all the way from the point I submit my request for the book review until the book was delivered safe to my hand half way across the globe!

(Excerpts from the website): 
This “Alternative ABCs” board book features original, colorful, and graphic illustrations and typography by Southern California based designers Eric Ruffing and Dave Parmley of 13THFLOOR. 

Aesthetically borrowing from street, surf, skate, and music subcultures, the custom design and typography beautifully spell out this unique alphabet. From Calligraffiti to Pin-Striping, and from Goth to Punk, this little book crosses genres and is sure to create a buzz.  Further details of the board book:

* ISBN: 9781934429396, Dimension: 6 x 6 inches and number of pages: 56 pages

The moment I read about the opportunity to review this book (without even seeing the pictures of it!) I was hooked!  I mean, how often you get to see something other than the normal A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat type of board books?!! I’m not sure about you but this is the first time I read about this concept! Just look at the pictures of Ben below enjoying the book when it arrives!

The book also instils a sense of responsibility in us, as you can see, R is for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle! How uber cool is that?! 

Ben flipping to the next alphabet for more!

Picture above of Ben, obviously intrigued with the vibrant colors used!

What I like about this board book?

* A different concept towards getting your child to learn alphabets

* Vibrant colors used for each alphabet which attracts and caught your attention

* Creative illustrations used where some of them actually helps instil preservations and love towards environment and our planet earth!

* The thickness of each page is just right (flimsy and thin books always get chewed by Ben and doesn’t last more than 1 week)

* The dimension of the board book is also just nice, not too big that I get tired holding them for Ben or too big for Ben to carry around. 

You can go to  http://www.ammobooks.com/books/altabcs/  to order a copy.

Similarly, you can also order from Amazon by clicking at this link: Alternative ABCs (Chunky Edition)

*** Btw, I am in the midst of liaising with AMMO Books for a giveaway copy to one of my lucky blog reader (yup! Could be YOU!!), so watch out for this OK?

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a free product by AMMO Books in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.