Hao Re was introduced to stickers when he was about 20 months, soon after the arrival of Xi Yu. He was staying at home with me (without attending the childcare) during my maternity leave, and I was running out of ideas what to do with him. So the stickers.

He loves stickers since. The first few months we gave him those loose 1 piece stickers, and he was just anyhow pasting the stickers onto anywhere. Table, sofa, books, shelves, human, clothes, etc, and he likes to take it off after sticking too. Not long ago, we introduced to him stickers book. Intially, he still pasted the stickers randomly onto the book. No long after that, we realised he actually know exactly where to paste the stickers, and he pasted it nicely and precisely onto the slot. If the sticker wasn't placed nicely, he would took it off and redo until he is satisfied with it.

This is the most recent "masterpiece", just completed an hour ago. He was able to pick up those same/similar animals from the sticker page (arranged randomly) and pasted them nicely and orderly onto a blank page. He did this without any help from us (as we were busy running chores, didn't notice what he was doing :-P) This is how it looks like:



I hope he has had fun. And this is what I would call "learning through play" :-)

Weekend (26 - 28th March 2010)

Went to have dinner at Lot 1, CCK on Friday. Spent a lovely time at the library with  Hao Re. He kept running to the shelves to get books for me to read. And he hasn't stopped talking, singing, and laughing for that very fun 30 minutes. Hubby and Xi Yu went to another session to have thier own time :-)

When he sees a certain animal/object, he would say the name of the animal/object immediately and then sings a song that is related to the animal/object. We were having so much fun!!!


On Saturday, we resumed our Zoo outing since Hao Re doesn't have to attend his music class anymore. He is behaving so well the whole day (well, he is always pretty well behaved, but today is like one of the best days!). He was very excited to see the animals and have fun.

But one thing weird though, is that he no longer likes waterplay. Even the Kidzworld at the Zoo, I thought he would have gone crazy and wanted to jump in and play (since we haven't brought him there for months). But no. He doesn't like water anymore, for now, for sure, confirmed! That includes bath time, he would scream and shout and cry almost everytime we ask him to take a bath. We don't know why, and this happens about a couple of months back. Hope he sorts out his problem(s) soon and would become to like water again.

Hao Re and Xi Yu enjoying their outing at the Singapore Zoo. Hao Re being the lovely gorgor, sometimes he would turn around, and point to and tell meimei what's the animals. And he would give meimei a kiss or a hug occasionally :-)


See, even Xi Yu enjoys the Zoo so much! She didn't nap until much later. Just before noon, she was simply to tired and dozed off in hubby's arm :-)


On Sunday morning, hubby suggested to have dim sum breakfast at the Yan Palace at Warren Golf Club (hubby knows I like dim sum and wanted to try this). Well, actually the dim sum was not bad at all, I think I can give it a pass, though it's still far from the Fu Shan Dim Sum at Ipoh. Good dim sum is simply too difficult to find in Singapore (let me know if you have good one to recommend, I only like to Hong Kong style one). Also went to the CCK farm market to get some vegetables for today's lunch and dinner. We went there it's because it's easy to access for us. It's actually not much different from the wet market, in terms of the price and quality.

We are blessed with 2 lovely and cheerful kids! They bring us so much sunshine! Look at those smiles on their faces!


In the late afternoon, we went to the park just across the road. Not a nice park, but it's the nearest and saving us the hassle of having to drive. Hao Re and Xi Yu did have fun. Only thing was when we told Hao Re that we are going to park, he actually insisted to bring along his sand-play tools, but to find out it's not the same park we are going to :-P

I cooked a fried ABC pasta with bean/mushroom/egg for Hao Re and he finished quite a lot! He also happily ate quite a lot of grapes for afternoon tea time. And for dinner, he ate quite a good amount of rice with mushroom/chicken/vegatables. I sincerely hope his good appetite is making his way back, and so soon he will gain back the 1kg that he had lost during CNY time.

At this very moment, I wish I could stay at home for a while to accompany Hao Re. He is at this stage of very keen to learn, and very nice and cute to talk and play with. I just couldn't get enough of him! But I know it's not possible for me now to not working, so I can only hope for a few years later, maybe...... a few years later, I will be a stay-at-home-mum...... maybe. For now, I continue to appreaciate and treasure every single minute that I spend with him!

Not that I don't want to spend time with Xi Yu, but you know, she is still not as responsive as Hao Re, she is still a very young baby. In time to come, I am sure the same feeling would appear when Xi Yu reaches this age.

Looking forward to the next weekend! 5 more days to go, just :-)

He grows up very fast, sometimes a bit too fast for us to follow, I feel......

I wish I could have more time to spend with him. I wish I could cook more often for him. I wish I could write down more things about him, good and bad. I wish I could...... But since his baby sister joined the family, I just coulnd't do as much as I want. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much slept I have sacrified, no matter what, I still have 24 hours. And this 24 hours gonna be shared between the two. I tried, and I am trying my best, and I still hold the same principle - I only want my kids to grow up happily and healthily, nothing else matters!

With all this "opening remarks", what I wanted to write for this post was that I took a day off on Wednesday to spend with Hao Re. Hubby told him this the night before when putting him to bed. He understood. On Wednesday morning, he woke up without us waking him, like what we do everyday. In fact, he was very happy since he woke up, and came to our room, opened the door and greeted me good morning and called with with his sweetest and softest voice!

We sent Meimei to her nanny and sent hubby to work. Then we shared our breakfast at the food court. He was in such a good mood that when I asked him to say thank you to an aunty who was cleaning the table for us, he actually did, which he had never said so or reluctantly said to strangers (i.e., besides me and hubby). When I told him aunty cannot hear you, can you said louder. He actually did and the aunty was very impressed and praised him.

We took our morning bath together. Changed ourselves and got ready to go and meet some of my fellow mummy friends, and for Hao Re to meet his little friends. It was a very nice gathering with a total of 9 mummies and 9 toddlers. Too bad that I didn't take any photo. I brought the camera with me, planning to take lots and lots of photos of the toddlers, but only to find out there was actually no battery in the camera, duh!

Got this photo from a mummy (ya, as you can see, it's very challenging to take a group photo, which turned out not that bad, I reckon!)


After some chatting, playing, and have our lunch, we went to Tuas for the toys warehouse sales. Hao Re took his nap during the car ride. He was a bit angry when I woke him up, as that was less than 1 hour of nap, but when he saw the toys, his mood has changed instantly to a happy one :-) Though I couldn't find anything that is suitable for him. I asked him to pick whatever he wanted, but he didn't pick any either. At the end, picked up a bottle of blow bubbles. I bought a few little toys for Xi Yu. And luck was on him, that before we left, I spotted a very nice and cute Elmo toy, which looks like a mini laptop, and it teaches the kids letters, numbers, colours, animals, etc, in a fun way. He likes it too, and it's a very good buy (= cheap). At least this trip was not wasted.

When we reached home, I played with him. On whatever stuff he wanted me to play with. I was tired but he didn't want to nap anymore. So I lied down on the floor besides him to take some cap naps, but he woke me up as soon as started to doze off :-P

I cooked dinner, very simple one, stewed chicked with mushroom. And he was very cooperative and ate the whole bowl! Made me very happy. And finished an apple too before meal time. Then we played the nursery rhymes on the DVD and we sang and did a bit of dancing together. He really likes singing/music and dancing/movement. We enjoyed it a lot.

After that, it's time to pick up Meimei and Baba. That ended our special day!

It does sound like a normal day for most of the mum, especially those SAHM, but to me, this is such a nice day and I wanted to write it down so that I won't forget about.

Hao Re, Mama loves you, Mama loves you so so much (and he knows)!!!

Hair loss - Hormone - Menses

Just my own thought.

I didn't breastfeed Hao Re (only occasion BF for about 6 weeks). And I didn't have any post-natal hair loss problem. And my menses came bame after 2-3 months after giving birth. Everything was back on track very quickly.

I breastfeed Xi Yu until now. I have very bad post-natal hair loss, very bad, and that's the period when I was doing total breastfeeding, for 4 months. It improved slightly when I stopped (or rather not able) to total BF. Hair fall problem was a lot better when I started to supplement with formula milk. When I decided to slowly stop BFing a few weeks ago, menses came back, and I no longer have hair loss problem.

It all made sense, isn't it? It's all regulated by my hormones. Once I stopped breastfeeding, the hormones go back to the normal level, my body has adjusted accordingly and hence no more hair loss and menses cycles started as usual.

Hope my theory is right :-)

(note: I am indeed lucky tonight. Xi Yu sleeps pretty well. Even hubby went to bed already. So I can use the PC rather than typing from my iPhone, can do a lot quicker. See if I can do another post......).

Only have time to post now, which is already Thursday. Just one more day to the weekend :-) If I am lucky that Xi Yu sleeps well, I could do more than 1 post, as I have wanted to note down quite a number of stuff.

My brother, TB and his girl friend, YW, came to visit us from Thursday night to Sunday morning. Hao Re was so delighted to see his Jiujiu. He was a bit shy to begin one, but he warmed up in just a few minutes. He was very happy to have 2 playmates for these few days. Jiujiu bought him a plastic thingy little toy, and he was able to destroy it within 1 hour!

Went to have dinner with TB and YW on Friday night, at the Chinese restaurant at the Warren Golf Club. We have been there once and found the food pretty good, and so we returned. Both Hao Re and Xi Yu were very well behaved. I brought the teething biscuit for Xi Yu, but she was only more interested in our food. Hao Re ate quite a bit of food. The food was nice. But it came with a very expensive bill (>$200). The two guys paid without asking. When we arrived home, we checked the bill again, and it shocked us that a dish of prawn (with only 5 or 6 relatively big prawn) cost us $90!!! Called and checked, and apparently they charged us 5 x $18, meaning it only cost $18, but because there were 5 prawns, so they actually charged us 5x!

Saturday went for the Disney on Ice. It's amazing how much Hao Re had enjoyed the show! He was fully concentrated, and actually kinda understand the storyline. He knew the witch is actually a "naughty aunty", and he was looking for Donald Duck after he was locked up by the witch. It's such a beautiful thing to see the smile of his face :-)

At night, we celebrated YW's brithday. Hao Re sang YiYi a birthday song and blew the candle with Yiyi. He was happy.

On Sunday, we went to Staccato for Hao Re's last music class. And have our breakfast at Picotin, for the last time until we come back for more classes, if we ever do so.

While Gorgor was attending his class, Meimei also busy practicing her piano. Looking good, ya, our little pianist :-)


It was raining for almsot the whole afternoon so we couldn't go anywhere. Went to have dinner at the shopping centre nearby. And Xi Yu tried the merry-go-round for the very first time!

Xi Yu likes this very much! As soon as we put her in, she hold on to the wheel and turned it like real thing. And then she stood up by herself holding on to the wheel. All these pictures here were actually taken when she was standing :-)

I didn't post an entry when Xi Yu was 6 months old as we were away for Chinese New Year holiday. Since the last update, it seems that she has grown up A LOT!No matter how exciting her life is or seems to be, it's pretty much all about eating/drinking, playing, and sleeping........ oh well, what's else can a 7 months does :-)

Eating/drinking
- Started solid at 6 months. Couldn't eat much for the first few weeks as she had tougue reflex. But she learned and got use to the idea of spoon-feed. After her tougue reflex has gone, she eats pretty well. Since about 3 weeks ago, she can eat one full meal of cereal (i.e., to replace 1 milk meal), and has tried several types of vegetable/fruit puree. Puree is more as a snack. So far, she has tried sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, butternut squash, carrot, banana, avocado, apple, rock melon, and mango.  A pretty good range, ya. And more will be introduced. Guess what's her favouriet, so far? Banana! And the least favourite (but it's the best for baby) - avocado!

- Still on my breast milk. I have reduced to only pump one per day while at work. Still latch on at night and midnight. I am trying to wean her off my breast, but guess it's not a thing that I can rush with, so I predict that would take a few months at least. She is mainly sucking for comfort, I reckon, as I know my breast couldn't produce much milk for her already (don't want to talk about my weaning off experience here, would wrap up my whole breastfeeding journey once I totally stop doing so).

- For formula cow milk, she has progressed from Stage 1 EnfalacA+ to Stage 2 EnfaproA+. She takes both well, but that burns a hole in our pocket, as the price keeps on increasing! I just found out a couple of days ago that Enfalac is now more expensive than Similac already (it used to be opposite)!

- She loves water. That gonna thank her nanny who introduced water to her when she was younger. Never had constipation problem. And her skin is well hydrated.

Playing
- Since she is the second kid in our family, the good thing is she has plenty of toys to play with, but it is also the bad thing, because all the toys are Hao Re's toys. We have got a few (small) toys for Xi Yu as her new toys, but once we took it out, Hao Re happily snatched it from us and said "是皓皓的!". Initially Hao Re doensn't let Xi Yu to touch any toys, but after a while, he is okay with Meimei sharing toys with him and so we have no more headache (hopefully!).

- Xi Yu loves all sorts of toys. Just get anything for her and she can keep herself entertained for hours (with us checking on her once in a while).

- And what's best? She loves her little big brother! Whenever her brother is within her sight, she follows every way he goes. As long as the brother is in the same room with her, she doesn't bother much about the parents (unless she is fussing for food or tired). Good for us, so no complain on this :-)

- We still put her in her exersaucer, but she is not that interested in playing in it, guess she already gets bored with all the toys attached, it's more of for us to put her there to free our hands (when she doesn't want to be sat down), really handy. Exersaucer is one of the things that we like most!

- She is a darling to play with, as she would give you the sweestest smile if you make her happy :-) She would kick her legs and move her hands in excitement. And something kinda talks to you. She also screams in excitement. And would laugh out loud if you play silly with her.

Sleeping
- Now, this's the part I was having problem with :-( Xi Yu was so easy to handle with when putting her to bed before she turned 4 months. But soon after she turned 4 months, I really struggled going through the routine everyday, for a solid 2 months! All sorts of things - refused to sleep, took very long to fall asleep, kept wanting to latch for comfort, fell sleep and woke up the next minitues, cried very loud and long before sleeping, waking up many times in a night, etc, etc. Luckily after we came back from CNY holiday, things got better and she has auto-fixed herself a time, i.e., 9pm, to go to bed. I am so grateful for this change, I finally got back my sanity to have some time to relax for a while before I call it a day. If she doens't fix this, I might have gone crazy as I don't want to do any sort of training on my kids. So glad that this is over (finger crossed!). Though I must admit, one problem still remains - she sometimes couldn't sleep tight, and would wake up for a few times (worst is one time per every hour!!!). I can only hope this would pass, too!

- During weekdays at nanny, she sleeps 4-6 hours during day time, and 9-10 hours at night, making a total of 13-16 hours per day.

- During weekends with us, she sleeps 2-3 hours during day time, and 10-11 hours at night, making a total of 12-14 hours per day. So all in, she definitely has enough sleep. Hope with this amount of sleep she locks in, can help her to boast her immunity and grows up healthily!

Development milestone
- A bit on her development milestone. Bought a digital scale. She is 8.4kg as of today, not bad, really. Still looks pretty chubby and still attract lots of attention (people will cry out, "oh, so cute!") when we go out.

- Think she is over the flipping game already. Sit very well and stable, though sometimes would still fall backwards. Started to creep/crawl on her whole body, not very well yet, but she can turn around very well, and somehow she is able to get the toys.

- Love to stand up. She can stand, with support of course, for a good a couple of minutes since 6 months old.

- The daddy can't wait for her little princess to start walking. So whenever he has time, he would give some "walking training" to Xi Yu. You would be surprised that she actually knows how to lift up her leg and walk already! Wonder she would be faster than Hao Re (who walked at 10 months). Dr Keoy said girls are usually faster than boys. Let's see of his theory is right.

- Didn't monitor / couldn't remember other stuffs. Think in general she is developing very well. My only wish if she could sleep better at night......

Till the next month :-)

(After note: Xi Yu has successfully hold the bottle on her own (with very little help from mummy), and finished off 5oz of milk. She did it for the afternoon and night feed. Well done, Xi Yu!)

星期五是个雨天。刚从皓日的托儿所接他回家。才走了没多久，在一个交通灯停下来时，皓日问：

＂妈妈，为什么没有小鸟？＂

（因为我们平日都会看到小鸟飞过）

我说：＂是喔，为什么哩？＂

皓日似乎很认真的在想，然后呢呢喃喃的在说了一些有的没的 (因为我听不懂他在说舍）。

再然后，他非常认真的说：＂小鸟回家睡觉了！＂

我说：＂但是太阳公公还没有回家喔。你看是不是下雨天？＂

皓日说：＂为什么没有小鸟，因为下雨天！＂

我俩就重复又重复这个话题直到回到家。对妈妈来说，这是非常有意义的一天！


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

12th to 14th March 2010

Xi Yu seemed to have blocked nose, so I brought her to see Dr Keoy on Friday. But Dr Keoy said she was okay so let her have the vaccination instead, the 6-in-1 and pneumococcal, (she missed these jabs at 5th and 6th month). She is such a brave girl, didn't cry at all! And no fever after that. I was all ready for the fever as I let her take 2 jabs at one go (of course with the approval from Dr Keoy). To give myself some credits, I like to think that is because of my breastmilk that gives her the powerful protection :-)

[p/s: Dr Keoy has shifted, again, from 9th to 10th floor (#10-02) of the Novena Medical Centre. He now owns his very own clinic and not sharing with anyone else].

After the jabs and assessment by Dr Keoy (which by the way, Xi Yu now weighs 8.2kg, with 68cm in length and head circumference of 44cm), Dr Keoy ordered a blood test for Xi Yu to test for her thyroid and TSH level. My poor girl cried so pitifully :-( She was very tired already and they couldn't find her vein  to draw blood from. She cried and cried and cried when they squeezed her arm and palm trying to find the vein. Finally the needle went in, drew 3ml of blood, and she cried the loudest!  I was so sad and felt like crying together with her. I quickly popped her onto my breast, and she stopped crying almost immediately. Luckily no other people in the clinic as I just lifted up my shirt and exposed my breast for latching without giving it another thought, what I wanted to do was to comfort her and stop her from crying, my breast is still the best "tool" for this. They don't allow me to latch her while searching for the vein and drawing blood, said it's against their SOP.

Saturday was the usual breakfast at Picotin ,and music class at Staccato in the morning. Went home and stayed at home after that.

Sunday was the very usual stay at home day for the entire day! Not even visited the park nearby or went out for meal. We were at home THE WHOLE DAY!!! We haven't done this for months already. It's good. Felt like so much time to be spent. Cooked both lunch and dinner (very simple though) for the family. But the day went pass as quickly. The reason we didn't go out was because it's raining for a few hours from mid afternoon onwards.

I wanted to write more on Hao Re's and Xi Yu's development, on the funny things they have done/said, etc, rather than writing this "report" (as what hubby commented) recording what we have done and gone. Oh well, that's pretty difficult to change, as this has to do with my writing style, hasn't it? But I will try. I have already missed out so much of those funny things that I should have blogged. So hope I will be posting more often and shorter ones :-)

(p/s: Xi Yu has fixed her own sleeping schedule. I am so happy! Since 2 weeks ago, she requests to be brought to the room at about 9pm. Now I usually get back my own time before 10pm, and so I hope I can write down more notes on the kids).

Probably you won't be able to tell what I'm going to tell you from the topic itself.

Well, here is the story - I managed to put both kids to bed in the same room, same time, both of them knocked out within an hour and without any fussing/crying!!!

It's pretty much an impossible task to be done. It happened on Thursday night. Hubby has to do site visit in the evening. He tried his best to come back as early as he can. By the time he got in to a cab and called me, iteas already passed 9pm, and the site is at the east coast. I thougth why not give it a try. If I can't manage them, then I can change my plan accordingly. So after successfully talked to Hao Re to go in to the bedroom, the three of us went on together. Light's out. We all were lying and rolling on the bed. Played, talked, sang some songs, giggled, laughed, done what we wanted to do, they both decided it's time to sleep (exactly at the same time, amazing, isn't it?!!). So I latched Xi Yu with one hand, then Hao Re hold my the other hand, both knocked out peacefully! Hubby arrived home at the same time also. Happy!

Oh, no, I definitely not looking forward to this situation once again. You can never expect they both to be so cooperative every time. I don't want to end up with a bad night :-p

For this very time, I just count myself lucky and I really enjoyed this very special night! And I think they enjoyed each other accompany as well :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Weekend well spent 

It was, again, a very busy weekend. And again, it's a well spent wekend :-)

Saturday morning was the usual breakfast at Picotin followed by Hao Re's music class at the Staccato. Went home right after that as we needed a good rest, preparing ourselves for a wedding dinner tonight.

06 March 2010 is the special day for our dear friend, JL & AC. We figured that we should attend their wedding and not to use our kids to make up the excuse :-) So the four of us, plus Viv & Isaac, total 3 adults and 3 kids marched to Orchard for the dinner. Surprisingly, we were there till the end of the dinner, which was about 11pm. We spent 4 hours there with 3 very cooperative kids. The newly wed put us and 2 other couples who came with a baby/toddler. So our table has a total of 5 babies/toddlers and 9 adults. We took turn to take care of the kids and it turned out to be a nice dinner, where mummies can chat (while daddies helped to take care of the kids) and enjoyed (kind of) the food. It was nice to meet many of my ex-colleagues, who I haven't met for ages, though I didn't have much time for chating (ya right, what's new, all the attention on the kids, what!). On our way back, Isaac felt asleep almost immediately after we got in to the car. Xi Yu also knocked out after finishing her milk. Only Hao Re still kept awake, probably it's over-stimulated. He finally slept around midnight.

Hao Re and Isaac were good friends for that 4 hours. Though there were some fighting over the toys/high chair, they were generally happily playing with each other. And these 2 monsters were totally amused by the "yum sheng" moment.


On Sunday morning, we decided to go to JB to stock up the formula milk (99% of the formula milk Hao Re consumed was bought from Malaysia, it's cheaper and we don't mind that it's not manufactured in the Netherland), as we heard that the price for Enfa will be increased very soon. The price has already increased (a lot) in Singapore. When we asked the sales girl, she said yes, when this lot has been sold out, the new batch will be sold at a new price at 2% more expensive (not too bad, luckily).

Came back home. Took a good rest. And hubby wanted to bring to kids to the CCK park. It has been a while since we last visited. And it's good to see that the new playground is ready to use! And we bought a new toy set for Hao Re to play with the sand.  Boy, oh boy, he got so excited and happy with the new toy set and the new playground. He put on his charming smile for the whole 1+ hours when we were there. And laughed a lot too! It's so happy to see him enjoying himself at the great outdoor. While for Xi Yu, she was equally happy, and busy checking the surroundings.

Hao Re playing with his new beach/sand toy set and exploring the new playgroud at the CCK park. 


Xi Yu is equally happy, enjoying the toy and the playground also, and busy checking the surrounding.


We then have our dinner at the restaurant at the park. Xi Yu was very hungry and tired already. Fed her milk but didn't want to let her sleep, as she was dirty and hasn't taken a bath yet at all the whole day. Hao Re was very happy with the dinner, as we got him his favourite food (for now) - satay. Guess how many sticks he can eat? FIVE sticks!!! He would have eaten 6 if the last one didn't drop on the floor. My mum got a shock when I told her this, she said it's way too much for a 2 years old :-P When we reached home, we quickly got the 2 bathed and changed and tucked them to bed. And we were able to enjoy a (kind of) quiet night :-)

Love this series of photos! Look at how comfortable they are with each other company :-) It's so sweet just to think of it (but I am also preparing for the toys snatching, fighting, crying, quarrel coming soon......)


We asked Hao Re to stand besides Xi Yu, put his hand around meimei to take a photo together. He did for a few seconds only before moving away, luckily hubby managed to capture this. Nice!


And it's JUST another 3 days to the next weekend..........

Curiousity started............

28th February 2010 was the day when Hao Re asked his first why. He asked two "why" that evening, both in Mandarin.

The first one - when we came out from the shopping mall, he suddenly paused and asked "为什么xxxx不见了?" (translation - why xxxx has disappeared?)  I couldn't hear him clearly, so didn't really know what he was asking. I guessed he asked why there was no more stage at the courtyard as there was one the day before for the lion dance performance.

The second one - when we walked pass our neighbour's, he paused and asked "为什么关灯?" (translation - why the light was switched off). This I heard clearly. I was a bit surprised and shocked, but luckily I still managed to give him an (good) answer.

This is what a expert's view on why a toddler likes to ask "WHY":

Your child's inquisitiveness is a signal that her mind is expanding quickly, and that she's curious about the world. She's starting to understand the concept of cause and effect — that there's a reason for almost everything. It's also a way for her to engage you in conversation, and keep you talking. If you get tired of the constant whys, don't simply fall back on "that's just the way it is." Instead, try to deflect them by asking her what she thinks. Her answer may amuse you, but try not to laugh — her mind is really working in amazing ways as she puts together what information she has about the world with a toddler's fertile imagination. If you truly don't know the answer, tell her the two of you can find out together. Write down the question in a notebook, and make sure she sees you doing it — that way, she'll know you're taking her queries seriously. Then find the answer together by visiting a library or museum. This way her questions become a way for you both to participate in research, and have fun doing it at the same time.

I waited till now to post this because I wanted to wait if he would ask more WHY. But no. No more why from Monday till now. Guess his little brain is busy with something else for now.

Till the next WHY......

12th to 28th February 2010

Though, no matter how much we enjoyed our holiday, enjoyed being at home, enjoyed being away from the city island, enjoyed being away from work, enjoyed spending great time with the kids/families/friends, enjoyed the Ipoh delicious food....... our 17 days of long holiday has officially ended.

Well, we have had a really good one. So ya, no complain, but only good memories to last!

Our iteninary:
12th to 24th February - back to home town, Kampung Salak Baru. Busy with families, friends, the kids, eating at Ipoh and KK, etc.

24th to 26th February - spent a short 3 days 2 nights at KL. Meeting families and friends, and celebrating my nephew, Zhi Jie's birthday.

26th to 28th February - back to Singapore. Settling the kids (and ourselves) to the routine.

************************************************
Satisfying our tummy 人以食为天篇
I had been thinking and dreaming of Fu Shan Dim Sum a few days before going home. We did manage to start our journey at 3.30am, and so when we arrived at Ipoh, it was before 9am (we didn't do stopover since the kids were in deep sleep). So what I wanted to eat - yes, have our breakfast at Fu Shan!!! After that morning, we went there 2 more times. And that finally satisfied my craving for Fu Sha Dim Sum.

Took photos of the Dim Sum, so that next time when I have craving, I can at least look at the photos - 望梅止渴 :-)


My favourite of all is the fishball with the special chilli sauce! My record is eat 6 of them in 1 serving!


It's simply too much good food at Ipoh! And plus that it's Chinese New Year, so we can only try to eat as much as our tummy can handle. Things that we won't miss include Ipoh White Coffee (had a few rounds at the Ipoh Old Town), Ipoh Hor Fun, and Ipoh bean sporut chicken, among others food.

My favourite Ipoh Hor Fun :-)


Gonna miss the Ipoh food again. Till we go back next.

Besides the Ipoh food, we had a few rounds of Kuala Kangsar's laksa also. As many Kangsarians said "you don't feel that you come back to KK if you don't eat a bowl of KK laksa". Both me and hubby like to KK laksa, it's so unique that you only find it at KK and no where else.

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Sister's wedding 喜宴篇
My younger sister finally decided to tying the knot! It was on the third day of Chinese New Year, 16 February 2010. We are very happy for her. Best wishes to you, my dear sister!

It's also a day when we met with many of our families and friends, all within that few hours. And it's great as it saved us a lot of time to go to different places to visit them. Hao Re was busy exploring the place and communicating with the people. Xi Yu was busy being passed from one hand to the other. She is simply too cute and it's definitely the centre of attention! We enjoyed the occasions very much as there were so many people their volunteered to take care of the kids, we just need to check them once in a while.

It's the only one family photo we have (so far) with all family members. Total 14 of us now, and counting :-)


Hubby likes the photo of Hao Re. And Xi Yu looks really pretty in this photo. And we have a photo of just the 4 of us :-)


Precious moment spent with uncles, aunties, cousins........


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Spending great time with families and friends 相聚的美好时光篇
Surely, Chinese New Year is the time for us to meet up with families and friends. And we sure did. Hao Re is the one who enjoyed the most, he simply loves being able to run around and to play with his grandparents and cousins and friends. Let's the photos do the story telling :-)

The grand-kids with "Ah Ma" and "Ye Ye".


Hao Re and Xi Yu having good time at our kampung. Probably they were borned with the "kampung kids genes" :-)


Gathering at SC's place at KL. We have a great time!


Hao Re and his "girl friend", Xuan Xuan.


We have also met up with many of our dear friends, but unfortunately no photos taken. That includes lots of our childhood friends.

And we finally met up with Hao Re's cousin's, KJ and his mum and grandparents at KL, it felt that we have known each other for a long time (through blogging). Too bad we forgot to snap a photo of the 2 kids together, and wished that we could stay longer.
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Hair cut 理发篇
Last, but not least, Xi Yu had a hair cut, and this is her new look. Most said that she looks cute with her new hair cut. But I don't think the hair dresser had done a good job, it could have been a lot better.

She didn't whine a single bit during the whole process. She is just so well behaved :-)


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Some notes 后记...........

- We forgot to bring our camera (oh no!). So most of the photos here were from our iphone (which are not bad, really) or from my cousin's/sister's DSLR. The good thing for not bringing home our DSLR was that it actually freed up quite a lot of time! We were quite sad in the beginning but at the end of it, we actually felt happy that we forgot our camera. Though I have to say we didn't take as much photos as we intended to, but then, we have some. Not a bad thing, I think, after all :-)

-  We did get away from Hao Re and Xi Yu for a few hours! Even that it's only a couple of hours without the kids and it's for our dentist check-up, we were equally happy and exciting enough :-) Left both of them with my mum and my brother (who is Hao Re's best friend). Subsequently, we left Hao Re with my mum a few times and went out with Xi Yu only, and that's pretty good also (though we did feel a bit guilty and kept thinking of Hao Re). Not that we wanted to leave him out, but he refused to go out with us, as he preferred to stay home and played.

- As requested by Hao Re (he kept saying 去动物园), we brought the kids to the Taiping Zoo and Zoo Negara at KL. We quite liked the Zoo in Malaysia, it has a very different environment than Singapore Zoo. Each has it own attractions. Singapore Zoo is ALWAYS clean and tidy and organized. Malaysia ones are set in a more natural way, ie, not as clean and tidy, but then the animals seem happier(?) or just our biased judgement :-) Anyway, Hao Re enjoyed both outings and that most important.

- Thanks goodness that the kids were settling so well the past 2 days when we came back to Singapore. No fussing at all.

It was certainly a great holiday that we have had. Look forward to more holiday to come :-)