Quality Time With Sofeah

Since my wife works on Saturdays (except for the 3rd Saturday of the month), I've had my fair share of quality time with Sofeah, you know, my daughter. I would have to say, it is quality time indeed.

Usually what happens is, I would wake up at around 0645 and then pray. Then I would prepare breakfast for my wife while she prepares for work. Since it's Saturday she doesn't need to go to work that early. We would then wake Sofeah up and my wife would feed her (BF as she would call it).

Then my wife would go to work and Sofeah is left all alone with me. No qualms since I'm used to taking care of babies and children since high school. Not that I did much back then but I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to observe the going-ons of child care (in fact I teach my wife most of the stuffs...hehe...ehem but she knows a lot more about the science of child care, like the theory of it all).

So that's about it. That's the routine for Saturday mornings.

What I really want to talk about is the golden moments you start to realise when you spend time alone with a child. All the crying, the giggling, the smiling and everything that a child would do really does bring out quite a satisfactory feeling inside me. Every inch of detail becomes apparent. How cute she is, the sudden realisation that I am a father, the tedious but must-do things, the tiring times and the happy times.

It's not like I never really spend time with her except for the 6 hours on Saturday morning, but the alone time is really the time that you get to see her because like it or not, I cannot take my eyes off my child.

The moment when my wife goes to work, I sense that Sofeah feels kind of sad. I would usually go down with my wife and Sofeah to the car and watch her leave. Sofeah now knows her mother. She knows her voice, she knows that my wife feeds her and is the source of her sustenance, she also knows when my wife would come home in the evening.

Bathing her is something that I would usually do in the weekend. During the weekdays, since my mum takes care of her, she does all the bathing and everything. Because Sofeah now knows how to react and bathing her is a lot more fun (but harder as she moves and kicks a lot). As she likes to take a bath she smiles and giggles a lot during this time.

As she now turns, rolls and can support her head up for a long time, she has become more playful. Putting on her clothes have definitely become more challenging than before. The cute face that she exudes everytime she turns and holds her head up is priceless. Then after awhile she would cry, probably because she's tired.

yoh...

Right now she's sleeping. Before that I took a walk with her around the premise of this Condo and let her touch all the stuff around her, like leaves, walls and whatever surface I can find. I can sense that everytime I do that, she appreciates the different feel each surface gives. But most of the time she would grab my finger tight as if afraid that I would let her go.

Check me out...

Putting her to sleep is not hard at all. She's one of those very good babies who would go to sleep when she knows it's time. Of course there are times when it's hard, but most of the time it's easy. I like the fact that she would smile everytime I sing her to sleep. It's heart warming (slightly sentimental, not manly).

Sleep praying...

She now really likes to talk. She doesn't just talk, she shouts. Sometimes even before sleeping she would talk gibberish with her eyes dimming slowly. Yesterday me and wifey went to buy a present for a friend's daughter (1 year old Ixora!) at Subang Parade's Toys'r'Us, so we thought it's only convenient for us to have dinner at the mall.

We went to this little restaurant called Nyonya which is very small and narrow (good thing Sofeah's stroller is also small). She was asleep at first, but then we ordered and waiters were walking back and forth over head so she eventually she wakes up. At first, not knowing her surroundings, she remained quite. But after awhile she starts playing by herself while me and my wife eats. Not long after she shouts time and time again, not to cry or anything, just to talk.

Sofah's awake now. I've fed her milk but now she wants to play. Later!