Do things we enjoy

I bought some muffin pre-mixed! I know, I cheat for buying pre-mixed. But no point in wasting time if she doesn't like it.

I thought she needs to perfect her motor skills. Hence, I decided to let her try her hands on baking.
I'm quite a harsh instructor because I make sure she does 60 percent of the work.

She enjoyed it and was very focus. Absolutely cute! I've never seen her so focused ! One side of her I will probably not see if I have been working full time. Counting blessings, Blessing One.

end products

Oh, did I mention that they were for Teachers' Day? Instead of me buying gifts, I thought I should make her prepare the gifts herself! 

I put on some flags which said 'Happy Teachers' Day'.

How did I do it?

What did I do to make him sleep through?
Nothing really. I thought the day will never come too. Marc is just more difficult than Da.
With Da, she slept through on her own and I didn't had to manipulate her sleeping habit or feeding time.

However, I guess letting them sleep alone helps. When we are not disturbed by the baby, we don't jump up the moment they cry. Babies make alot of noise when they sleep.

I didn't let him cry because the whole condominium would have woken up. I slept with him on the last few nights before he slept through. I kept giving him the pacifier and teach him how to go back to sleep. That's how I moved the 2 feeds at 1am and 4am to 11pm and 6am.

With 2 children sleeping through, many asked me how I did it. Maybe I've done something right, maybe I am just lucky.

With Marc, I did try a few things and also manipulated his feeds though it was only in a matter of 1 week. First, I dream feed him at 11pm so that I can move his 1am feed to 3am. When I successfully moved it to 3am, I will give him the pacifier which will help him to go back to his sleep till 5am-6am. Once Marc did it the first night, he realised he likes sleeping more than waking up for feeds and didn't wake up anymore unless the mosquitoes are buzzing around!

Lucky me.

New addition!

Sorry, this is way overdue but 2 months of late nights, duties of feeding twice and changing diapers really got into me. In addition, I had to keep the older one occupied during the day. It's amazing I didn't fall sick at all! I used to have bad throat when I travelled and worked late.

Yes, new addition. Marc, my number 2! Number one, Da, was truly happy and loved Marc the moment she met him. It's like we handed her the Barbie doll!

Marc is very different from Da. He cries very loudly, colicky every evening, doesn't like bathing, poo at night and is a light sleeper. So, we had a harder time with him. However, I survived! He got better after 2 months and since then, slept through! Yay!

5 days old and so small.

SAHM

13th April 2012
Last day at work.

It was work and more work towards the last day of work. No time to say bye to everyone at work.
Did I feel happy to leave work?
Yes but I wasn't at a stage of relief because I knew that it will be challenging to be a SAHM.
I still had occupational issues after I left work in the first week of leaving the Bank. 'Oh, I didn't complete that' , 'Oh, I didn't had time to handover that' and 'I wonder if the countries are doing okay with me'.

First week with my 2.5 year old was busy. I was doing house improvements.
Eventually, I fell sick after 2 weeks. So much for being a SAHM.

However, good thing was whenever I asked my girl if mummy can go back to work. She said, 'No'.

Missing the laughter at work but not the work.

noo good

everything is no good nowadays.

in Da's eyes, everything is no good. her food, our music, our choice of TV programs and after we give her.

eat your porride => NOO GOOD. and she will push the feeding hand away. as if not enough, she will stand up to me and push my hand till I get the message and retract my hand.

in the car, playing my radio station => NOO GOOD 'mu-sik', NOO GOOD, NOO GOOD, mu-sik(she wants her children songs).

daddy watching golf => NOO GOOD, NOO GOOD(waving her hand) and she will walk over and switch off the TV. To that, mummy went 'wahahahha' and daddy trying to keep a straight face and trying not to laugh.

Our Princess is talking and expressing herself. Well done!!!!

findings

my mother-in-law did some investigation when she sent Da back to the gym. Apparently, she did scratch the teacher's face but they didn't really punish her. They just spoke to her and take her out of the group. Da just decided to remain by herself, outside of the group.

I don't know that was just it but I don't care now.

Sitting in a corner.

8th of August

Da got punished. My helper(Ann) went to fetch Da from the gym school and found Da quietly sitting in a corner by herself. Ann said that Da seems to know that she has done something wrong. Ann gathered from the teacher and found out that Da scratched the teacher’s face.

That was all I gathered. I don’t want to be those parents who can’t let anyone punish their child. The child needs discipline sometimes. After all, isn’t it better for someone else to do it? I don’t have to play bad cop all the time.

However, that didn’t stop me from wondering if Da was too young to be punished and I did feel sorry that she had to sit in a corner. I also didn’t want to think that Ada will scratch anyone’s face. She scratched our faces before but she had accidentally done it. We know we have to be defensive when we handle young children. Ann did say that the teacher was new. Hmmm. Could the accident been avoided if she has been more experienced in handling a child? Could she have avoided being scratched?

I know someone else will be keen to investigate further why her precious (grand-daughter) was punished.

Practice makes perfect

I need to update the blog more often because Ada has a follower who just moved to London and she is still tracking A's milestones.




This was shot in July when she was 22 months old. She mastered it after some practice when she was 21 months old. Not bad for a 22 months old. She learnt to balance. We still need to practice more with her and she will do better. So, she says 'scooter' pretty well.

words

She is slowly uttering words. I've read somewhere that they should have a vocabulary of 50 words by the time they are 2.
Hmm!
Panick!
Let's count!
I don't care if she's slow. As long as she has 50 words, I can proudly say YES
when the nurse/doctor ask the next time and I don't have to worry that they will send her for speech therapy.
The fact that I said, 'Let's count!' implied that A had been repeating after us in the last couple of weeks.



So here are the 27 words and we are counting.
Let's count together! We have another 3 months before she turns two.

with cousin(s)

Sometimes, I miss my childhood.
Those days when 7 cousins stayed in the apartment about my parents' coffeeshop.
Sometimes, there were more of us when other cousins came and visited.
We played, fought, bathed, formed alliances and bully the cry baby in the group.
Cry baby came only once in a while from Australia, to visit. ha.
Cry baby has a sister who liked to pinch us but very adorable.

Naturally, I wish my little one to have her cousins to play with.
Now that she's older, she is really playing with her older cousin, E, who loves company.

Here, they were watching Barney. Guess A just followed what E did and climbed onto the bed while the adults were busy.

We have a Third Party

We gone through the 7-year itch and we had Ada. Sorry, anti-climax.

Now that we are in the 8th year of our marriage, Ada is now the 3rd party in the bedroom.

It all started when she fell sick and instead of having to run down the stairs to her room, we let her sleep with us. So, she slept on the mattress beside our bed.
Then, her air condition broke down. We extended her stay in our room.

She went back to sleeping in her room but if she knows that I am going to put her to bed, she will hold her comfort toy in one arm, wave goodbye to her grandmother and tug my hand to bring me upstairs to my room. There's never a chance to reject her and cause her disappointment.

Yesterday, Daddy gave up after trying to put Da to sleep for 45 mins. He carried her up to the room. She ran across the room, headed straight to the bay window and attempted to pull the mattress down to make her own bed. Thereafter, she followed instructions to bring down her pillows and blanket from the bay windows and said, 'okie', waiting for me to finish my last Whatapps to my bedtime friends.

She slept soundly after 15 mins, in our bed eventually.

Speech therapy

Today, I had speech therapy. Not that I went for speech therapy but I was given given 'speech therepy'. Because Ada spoke! I felt a sense of relief straightaway. it means she doesn't need early intervention, as the nurse in the poly clinic suggested.

My SIL identified that Da spoke on Sunday when she was poking daddy and go 'PA PA, PA PA, PA PA'. 'There! She's speaking!! Look, she has started speaking that's what speaking is about', said my SIL.

'orh, is it??'


This morning, as I was arranging her shoes at the door, she said, 'Put dare(there)'.
Yes, put there, I said.

'tok tok (toe toe)' and patted her toes.
yes, toes, baby, clever girl.

the nanny went, 'say bye to mommy'.
'bae bae'
bye bye, baby.

so, that's speech therapy for me.

Her favourite smelly

This is Da and her mate. The rabbit I had since I was 15 and seldom played with.
The rabbit has a second life, we always say.
We wash the rabbit often. We will steal it from her in the morning, often while she is sleeping and then put it to dry.
It must be returned to her at night. Or else, she will miss it. Or, she will wake up in the middle of the night, feeling lost.
Here's a clip whereby I captured her with rabbit and her reading the newspaper which I hope she will keep up with when she's older. Don't be like mommy because I hate reading the newspaper. It's so boring.

Hort Park

6th March. 17.5 months old.

She was having a cold but we thought that she needed some sun and we went to Hort Park!

Somewhere I wanted to go for the longest time.

It's beautiful and has got many slides and playground.

She sweat it out and she tried to navigate the slides herself. I think she was on familiar ground as she goes to the children gym so often.

Mommy and Daddy had fun too cos we needed the sun too.

Our girl, so big now. Only one lovely picture because mommy forgotten to bring the camera.

Let's go to Hort Park again.

11th month old

Today, she's 11 months old. :-)

I was busy the whole day, with her.

And only now, I'm abit emotional that she's 11 months old ALREADY! is it due to the glass of wine I'm having??

I thought I forgotten to take a picture of her on her 11th month old and I remember this picture which I took of her at Pete's place, chewing on a bread stick. With that, my helper and I can take a break and enjoy our hot pizza.

I remember telling the helper, "Quick Anna, let's eat NOW!" haha. And then, we chomp our food down.

I managed to take a picture so that we can send Daddy a mms.

We order the birthday cake and book the birthday venue. Now, we just have to pray for good weather, if God allows on the Sunday, 12th of September 2010 @ 3pm. Can I do cloud seeding at Marine Parade??

Actual birthday is on the 1 6th September and same day as our MM. Hmmm, is Ada going to be as bright as him? I know Ada is as fair as him. wahahaha

Myself

Hi There.

Sorry, I haven't been around much. But I will be soon. Updating as usual. Stay tune.

Bonding

I didn't cry the first time, 4 months ago. I'm referring to the first time baby A had her sedative drug. The nurse had to force feed her and she was wailing. This is the drug which she has to take before the cardiac scan.

Last Thursday was a follow up to check that the 2 tiny holes have more or less closed up. I dread putting her through the scan so soon but due to her sleeping habit(extra long hours), I was worried that it has got something to do with the holes in the heart .

This time, she was wailing very badly and looked like she was going into fits. A look at the syringe, I saw that there's still half a syringe of drug to administer. That's when I couldn't hold my tears anymore. I was tearing badly now, in the clinic full of parents and children. And there's no one with me, just myself and the baby. I had to use the tissue which I'm suppose to clean her mouth with, to wipe away my tears.

I was pretty embarrassed for crying. But the crying made me realised that I've bond with the baby. The experience at the clinic was very emotional draining. After we left the clinic, I was traumatised and couldn't stop worrying about her. She slept for another 5 hours. The holes in the heart have more or less closed up and there's only a gap which we will follow up when she's 1 yr old.

Next time, I will make sure that hubby witness it too.

Hats

Picture a smart 40ish Caucasian man with a white linen shirt, khaki bermudas and a hat like this. Now, picture him at a traffic light junction at Marine Parade(heart land).

I was driving pass the other day and I saw this man. He was really cool ! The best thing is that he made me feel like I'm in Australia or any European country. He made me feel like my estate is Holland Village.

Then the next day, I saw a lady with a toddler and a pram. She was wearing a hat similar to this. Not to mention another old lady who alighted from a bus with her helper.

I think people are getting used to wearing hats in Singapore. Aren't that cool??

Okay, this is my version of my hat. It even has a feather.

This is at a recent wedding in Sydney. I'm only adventurous in a foreign country where hat is more a normal.

Happy

She's happy. I'm happy.

She's 20 weeks but looks older than that because she's quite chubby.

Although with no double eyelids, she's still quite adorable.

I realised that she can sit upright yesterday and decided to quickly snap a few pictures. She can't turn yet and I wonder if I should help her or let her take her time. Because once she starts turning, there's another set of worries.

We have moved her back into our room so that she can enjoy the air conditioning. With the air conditioning, she missed her first feed at 7am and sleep to as late as 9pm. Mind you, she hits the sack at 9-10pm. Every time, I think of that, I'm reminded of how blessed I am. That I can still sleep in with a new born. Thank God!

Hmmm...what a new start

A new start, a new beginning.

Today, I start anew with new postings! Gone with the old and come the new!

If you are out there and will be following me. Feel free to drop a note and say hi!