The little man talking

During the car ride (by the way, since this Monday, Hao Re asked to be seated at the rear passenger seat till today. I got back my front passenger seat, finally!), Hao Re asked me to pick up something for him. I didn't manage to so he tried to do the same and he got it. He said to me:

"妈妈不厉害的，皓皓厉害的。＂

Totally made me and hubbub speechless!

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When putting him to bed,
Me: 皓皓，妈妈说故事给你听，ok?
HR: 皓皓说白雪公主给你听力（his favourite now), ok?
Before I answered, he said: ok!
HR: 魔镜说什么？魔镜说魔镜魔镜，世界上谁最美？
HR: ama, ama, alimumba, alimumba, hummm! (learned from the DVD).
HR: 妈妈，很好笑！He then pretend to laugh out loud.

HR: 妈妈，我们说小蝌蚪...........

HR: 妈妈，我们说灰姑娘...........

So half an hour has passed and he showed no sign of falling asleep.

Me: 皓皓，妈妈变一个caterpillar 出来了 (he scares caterpillar)，＂twling!" Caterpillar 说小孩子还不睡觉，它就要来咬你屁股了！

HR: twling, 皓皓把caterpillar 变走了！

Me: twling, twling, 妈妈变两个caterpillar 出来了！

HR: twling, twling, 皓皓把两个caterpillar 变走了！

And it continued on......... I knocked out already when still trying to entertain him. When I woke up later, he had fallen asleep already :-)

Honestly, whenever possible and as long as the kids still want me to, I don't mind putting them to bed and sharing a room with them to as long as possible. This kind of sweet moment is just priceless!!!!!

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Have been an interesting month........

It has been a lot of fun for Xi Yu for the past few weeks.

- She has 4 teeth! 2 upper and 2 lower, already visible, have grown out of the gum for about 3mm.

- She stands very well.

- She cruises a lot.

- She is still not interested in crawling. Usually will only make use of the crawling when she can't cruise (nothing to hold on to

- She can pull herself to stand, and learning how to sit down from standing position.

- She can change swiftly from sitting to crawling and then crawling to sitting position.

- She loves her freedom, i.e., to be able to cruise around to play with whatever she is aiming (that is within her reach).

- She babbles a lot. With her favourite word now is, still, BABA. Only called out Mama once in a blue moon. My mum commented she may start talking at an early age.

- She laughs and giggles and grins a lot. Simply irressitable to look at her smiling face, soooooo cute! She is a very happy baby, put on her smiling face almost the whole day!

- She is very alert with her surrounding. Respond very quickly to sounds and movement.

- She is happy with any sort of toys, as long as we give her something to hold.

- She learns to fight over toys with her brother, and she always aims at whatever her brother is playing, and we learn that she has a very strong personality, very fierce girl.

- She is able to pick up small toys/objects comfortably, very good finger grasp.

- She takes solid very well, a lot better than the previous month, and she really enjoys food for now.

- She accepts all type of vegetable and fruit and porridge and baby biscuits given, becomes less choosy, which is a great change.

- She drinks well, both the milk and water. Never have any problem with drinking.

- She can hold her milk bottle and finish her milk without any help. But haven't learn to use a sippy mug though (mummy's ignorance!).
Among all these, what I appreciate most is that she has been sleeping sooooooooooooooooo well compared to previous month. She sleeps through the night from 9-10pm to 5-6am the next morning. No milk feed needed in between. Sometime need a bit of pat pat when she woke up for whatever reason (baby at this age wakes up often as they are still learning/practising what they have learnt during the day unconciously).

(Side note to Hannah: Yes, you are right, babies would outgrow their sleeping problem sooner or later, I should have taken it lightly and stayed positive all this while. Thanks for your kind advise!).

Now that she turns 9 months, the most exciting thing that awaiting her is that she is going to fly for the very first time! I am not talking about the Singapore Flyer, she had already been flying on the flyer a few months back. I am talking the real aeroplane. We are going to Shanghai-Suzhou-Hangzhou from 22nd to 29th May 2010. How lucky the nowadays kids are. I took my first flight only when I was 26 years old, and she takes her at 9 months old (and my parents only took their first flight when they are over 60 years old)! We will be going with my parents, my aunty and uncle and my cousin and his girlfriend. We are very sure we (=me and hubby) will be having a great holiday as we will have so many pairs of hands to help out with the kids. Hope both Hao Re and Xi Yu will enjoy as much to play with the families!

Besides this trip, I am very sure Xi Yu is going to enjoy more this month a lot, with her better and better cruising skill and that she know what's happening around her better.

Till we come back from our holiday :-)

Oh, wait, let me end with some recent videos of Xi Yu:

Enjoying her favourite fruit, banana, with daddy.

Xi Yu eating banana from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

Her current cruising skill at 9 months.

Cruising skill of a 8 months old from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

Play time - building blocks

Xi Yu and the building blocks from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

Play time - percussion muscial instrument

Xi Yu - playing with musical from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

(Side note: have already written a few paragraphs on my iPhone, but it's all dissappeared, grrrr! Am using BlogPress. What's the best apps for blogger?)

At home with grandparents + Marina Bay Sands + Breakfast and shopping at JB

The past weekend was just different simply for the fact that my parents are around. More so for us, as we got to leave the 2 of them with my parents for a morning, while we went to the town to attend to some personal matters. When we left home, Hao Re was still sleeping and hubby didn't want to wake him. Later I have to turn back as I forgot something. Hao Re already woke up and I thought he would cry and don't let me go when he saw me. But he didn't. He happily gave me a kiss and bid me goodbye, and continued playing with his grandparents, kind of ignoring me. I was happy and sad :-P They were under my parents care for about 5 hours and my mum said both of them were very well behave. Didn't create any problem at all.

I guess Hao Re must have liked the experience of that none of us was at home to "control" him, he could simply ask to do anything he wanted to do, play anything he wanted to play, and eat/drink anything he wanted to eat/drink, which otherwise he would be getting a "NO" from either of us. This is especially true with my dad. While my mum knows well what's can and what's can't be done/given, my dad has no control of the kids or rather he doesn't bother to and doesn't know how to control him (my mum as SAHM and my dad paid very little effort in rearing his children), and he thinks that the best grandpa should fulfill the needs of his beloved grandchild unconditionally. As a result, he gave this chocolate bar to Hao Re, and Hao Re finished the whole bar, excitedly, within minutes! Not that we have never given him any chocolate, but never this much! Duh, I was mad, but well never mind lah, it won't hurt him or anything. Just cannot let him see this chocolate until he forgets about it, or else he would ask us to get for him :-)

Let the kids take nap. We have a short rest too. Then off we went to the Marina Bay Sands. Oh well, it's a pretty wrong choice, nothing much to see there and it's quite dusty and noisy as the construction is still on (should have gone to Marina Barage for kite fyling instead). The thing that Hao Re enjoyed most was when he saw those uncles working on the outdoor timber platform, who put on the yellow safety helmet and using a hammer. He related this to his tool set and watched intensely how the uncles did thier work. And he was happy to go out with the grandparents. He kept looking back and checked if they were following closely. Xi Yu was equally happy to check out the surrounding. I fed her green pea puree before we left for our dinner. Couldn't find anything to eat. The hotel buffet dinner is at $68++, it's so expensive and we are not buffet people. Ended having the Holland XO Fish Noodle :-)

Sunday we went to JB for breakfast and shopping. Thanks goodness the traffic was very smooth all the way, or else we all would have been starved! After breakfast, went to Jusco Tebrau for a quick shopping. Brought Hao Re to the indoor play section, and he loved it! Went to Popular to get some books for Hao Re since he starts to like story telling a lot. We read a lot of English children books in the library and he never asked us to bring home. Only last Friday, when I read him a couple of Chinese books, he immediately said he wanted to "buy" these books and bring home. Same at the Popular. He picked up the Chinese story books. Bougth 9 books for him. Then grabbed 10 tins of EnfaProA+ for Xi Yu (being very kiasu here as the sale person said price is going to increase a lot from June) and 2 tins of EnfaGrowA+ for Hao Re. Then gonna rush back already, as my dad couldn't stop nagging us that he wanted to watch the Thomas Cup Final, duh, shouldn't bring him along :-P

Weather turned bad. And so we couldn't bring the kids to the park. Hao Re kept telling us he wanted to go for sand play (要玩沙沙), I think it's because he found some sand play toys and wanted to show those to grandma. Too bad, my dear, gonna wait for a better weather, ya.

Xi Yu copes very well with the dramatic different between weekdays and weekends. At nanny, she follows a very routine (with fixed timing) schedule on 99% of the times, and she could lock in 4 to 6 hours of nap time! While on weekends, she follows us to be non-routine and no fixed timing/schedule, and she can only lock in 2-3 hours (sometimes less) of nap, and she is able to drink and sleep on the go!

Either this one:


Or this one:


Or this one:

A quick lunch time post

Since early May, Xi Yu and I have moved back to the master bedroom and the 4 of us are now, again, sharing one room, after we moved ourselves out to the spare room for about a long 4 months!

I no doubt love this arrangement. That I am able to see Hao Re sleeps, and attend to him in the middle of the night when necessary and can hug him to sleep sometimes. That I can hear the men snore, which makes me feel very happy 幸福.

Hao Re is definitely happy as well because she knows that I am in the same room. There were a few nights when he crawled down from his bed and slept besides me, and hug me tight. Another 幸福.

For Xi Yu, she sleeps on her own bed but just besides me (we both sleep on the mattresses on the floor), she likes it too as she can turn and roll to me when she wants to rather than being confined in her cot bed.

And for my Mr, I didn't ask him. But I am guessing he likes it too as I can help to attend to Hao Re when he wakes up in the middle of the night (not often) and so he can continue to Zzzzzzzzz. Besides, he can still have the bed to himself and Hao Re.

Win win situation!

And with my parents around and Xi Yu sleeps very well at night, sometimes I take over the duty of putting Hao Re to bed. I just love that! He loves it too! I think it'll very hard for sending the kids out of our room as I am the one who don't want to be separated :-) Hao Re starts to appreciate bedtime story telling. I don't read from the book but I creatively lengthen the story so he can take part in the story and add in a lot of funny sound effect to make him laugh.

One funny thing we observe though is that he seems to like and only pick up Chinese books but no English, wonder why?


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It's not the food, but the companions that matters most!

As usual, we dine out on most, if not every Friday night, as our part time helper comes to clean the house on Friday evening, and so we don't want to have the kids around the house. Easier for the helper to clean and we (especially the kids) can have less exposure to the dirt.

We usually go to a place where there is a national library so that we can bring the kids to read (play) with the books after meal, and we can pick out some books for ourselves. It's been a great arrangement which we have been practicing for the past few months.

Last Friday, we went for dinner together with my mum. My dad refused to come along as he was glued to the Thomas Cup, though we all doubted since when he was so addicted to badminton to the extend that he would let go of dining out (his favourite!).

Here are some photos and videos taken on the phone to help us to describe the dine-out:

Xi Yu and Baba bonding time


Xi Yu playing with herself while waiting for our table:

Xi Yu admiring herself from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

Hao Re's food and drink for the night :-) Yes, you se it right, there is nothing in his bowl, only ate the cracker, as he already had his dinner at his school.


Hao Re entertained us with the C.O.C.O.N.U.T song. He drank 1 whole coconut and ate almost half of the flesh :-)

C.O.C.O.N.U.T - Hao Re singing from TJ Kam on Vimeo.

A funny one!

While having dinner, Hao Re focused on his sliced fish cake very much.

Gong gong tried to get his attention by touching his hand.

Hao Re looked up and said in a very serious tone: ＂公公，不要再玩了，快点吃饭！＂

He continued with his fish cake while we have a real good laugh.

Hao Re disciplined his grandpa :-)


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GongGong and PorPor are in town!!!

It's Mother's Day last Sunday, meaning that it's MY DAY! I don't need any present or celebration. Because I already have the best - my parents are here in Singapore staying with us for a month or so - that's the best I can have for a Mother's Day!

I haven't had the chance to celebrate my mum's birthday (usually very close to Mother's Day) for the past 10 years or so. It's great to have them in town. We went for a dinner on Friday night, together with my cousin and his girl friend, who were visiting Singapore for the past weekend. We had a nice meal and the 2 lovely kids were just so cooperative (amazed the grandparents and the JiuJiu and Yiyi). Hao Re enjoyed the food and he ate quite a lot, and willing to try a lot of (new) things.

Of course his happiest moment is the birthday song singing, candle blowing and cake eating :-) It's a mango cake and he ate a lot of the mango rather than the cake itself.

Here are some photos. I am so blessed to have these 2 beautiful kids, the best present a mum can get for a Mother's Day!



I picked up my parents and my cousin from airport on Friday afternoon. After that, together with my parents, we brought Xi Yu to Dr Keoy's clinic for her 3rd Pneumococcal jab and also for the H1N1 vacication (as we will be travelling to China by end of the month, for better protection of the young kids). Xi Yu is growing really well and there is no concern at all. After these jabs, she developed her very first fever since the midnight. Consequently, for the whole Saturday, she clinged on to me like a koala bear. Even when the fever subsided around Saturday afternoon, she still looked a bit unwell and still clinged on me. Luckily she took her milk and solid very well.

Partly because of Xi Yu and partly because of the weather, we didn't go anywhere or do anything during the weekend. Went to CSC for swimming, but the weather turned bad after we went in to the pool for about 5-10 minutes, so quickily got the kids out of the pool and went home.

Since my parents are around, we got to enjoy a very relax weekend at home with the kids, and enjoy my mum delicious home-cooked food :-)

怎么办??? and 钱!!!

We kept Xi Yu's car seat away to make rooms for the grandparents.

When we were in the car this morning, I asked Hao Re where is MeiMei's car seat?

Hao Re looked very concern.

I asked him: " 怎么办?"

After some serious thought, he answered: "去买过!"

I told him he has to let Baba know.

When hubby got in to the car, he repeated: "爸爸, 妹妹(的)car seat 不见了, 要去买过!"

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He knows the concept of buying. And he knows we must pay money to buy something. And I told him Mama doesn't have money. If you want money to buy something, you have to ask Baba. Clever me, keke :-)

Now when he wants to get something from the shops, he would say to hubby: "爸爸拿钱, 要买XX".

When he sees the merry-go-round or kiddy rides, he would say to hubby: "爸爸, 给皓皓一塊钱".

His favourite, for now, is "给钱皓皓去买lolipop!"

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Hao Re's first attempt

My brother called on Sunday. After we talked to him, I passed my phone to Hao Re. Hao Re knew exactly how to talk on the phone like an adult, and he did have a little chat with his JiuJiu, by repeating what I asked him to say but he didn't really listen to what JiuJiu said to him :-)

The funniest part was after while, I didn't tell him what to say, so he didn't know what to say and kept calling JiuJiu for a few times, and then he walked to his toy shelf (with the phone on his ear), and picked up one toy and brought it back to us, and called JiuJiu again, and mumbled some words (which I couldn't figure out). Apparently he wanted to show his toy to JiuJiu through the phone :-)

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看你还敢不敢。。。。。。

星期六早上，爸爸带皓日到楼下走走。

父子俩大约半个小时后回来。

妈妈问爸爸：“怎么去了那么久？去了哪里？是不是去吃了什么好料？”

爸爸答道：“没有啦！只是在楼下走走而已，没有吃什么啦。”

妈妈接着便问皓日：“皓皓，爸爸刚才带你去哪里？”

皓日答：“爸爸带皓皓去吃 ice cream!"

原来爸爸带皓日去了麦当劳吃冰淇淋。

哈！哈！哈！看爸爸还敢不敢说骗话 :-)

The LOVE!

For the VERY FIRST TIME, which happened on Wednesday (05052010) evening, I was genuinely hoping that I could spend more time with Xi Yu than with Hao Re!!! I was actually thinking (I didn't say it) that Hao Re didn't come to bother me, so I can have some quality time with Xi Yu. This is a very important change of mindset for me. I am actually glad that this happens! I am improving on my bias-ness.

Dear Xi Yu, mummy promises I will try very hard to provide the very best for you. Mummy loves you as much as mummy loves gorgor, but it's just that mummy cannot spend as much time with you as compared to when gorgor was this little. But then, you have gorgor to play with you since day 1 and gorgor loves you very much. Mummy hopes you grow up happily and healthily. Hope to see more smiling and hear more laughter from you, my dear darling!

Things can only go better! Stay positive!! 加油!!!

Fighting with a mild fever with minor cough and phlegm

As I posted last week, we let him fight the battle on his own and didn't give him any medicine. Good news! He won the battle!!! Yeah, so proud of him! Actually he is still coughing now and then, but it's not phlegmy cough, and didn't disrupt his eating or sleeping, and it didn't get any worser. I take this as good signs and let his body to be fully recovered from this bout of small illness, maybe in another week or so.


Sleeping routine
I posted this a few weeks ago, that Hao Re refuses to go to bed at 9 - 9.30pm. Bad news. Problem remains unsolved :-( Hubby decided that we don't fight with him and don't insist on the 9 - 9.30pm sleeping time. We let him spend another hour playing/watching tv. Then he is more willing to go to bed. Still have to drag him in, but at least is less struggling, less crying/whinning and he can fall asleep faster. No solution found yet. Not sure how we can reverse his sleeping time to the previous timing.

Or to think of it another way, is it really necessary to stick to the 9 - 9.30pm? His nap time, either weekdays or weekends, is at least 2 hours (can be 3 hours at weekends if he is really tired). Night time is now 8 - 9 hours. So total is 10 - 12 hours. Is it sufficient? For me, I think is not too bad, but I would prefer that if he can sleep at least 12 hours everyday. That said, going to bed at 9-9.30pm is the most ideal. But I think as long as he is growing up well, gaining weight and healthy and all, maybe we shouldn't be too stress on what time he sleeps? Of course cannot be too late. My limit is 11pm. No later than that. My parents will be here to stay with us for a month or so. It's even more so that he is not willing to go to bed, as has another 2 playmates to play with. I think we have no choice but to let go. Be relax.
 
 
Jealousy? / Separation anxiety? / Terrible twos?
Hao Re has been a bit of unreasonable since Sunday. He would beat us lightly with his hands when his needs is not met or something (which we don't know what) frustates him. Still haven't become too bad, but I feel so helpless to see that he is unable to tell us what he thinks/feels/wants. He can speak so well already but yet I guess this is another level of communication (to tell us what bothering him) that he is not capable of doing now. We have tried talking to him, reasoned with him, taught him what he can do and what he should do, etc. But he still does that. I think he knows and understands that he is not supposed to that (beat us), but he doesn't know of any other way to communicate with us? On Sunday night hubby couldn't take his nonsense and beat  Hao Re with his hands. Hao Re was shocked and cried loudly. After that hubby was regreted, but he just couldn't control his emotion at that very moment. Something is going on in his little brain. We hope this phase pass soon.
 
Also, these few days he is very sticky on me. I am suspecting that he is seeking more of my attention, as I just don't have enough time to play with him. Since Monday night, we (me and Xi Yu) moved back to sleep in the same room with the son and dad, Hao Re seems to be happier (not sure if the hubby is happy as the bed now becomes squeezy :-)). I hope this helps him to understand that I still care for him and love him all the same!

It's a fun filled Sunday

Finally brought Xi Yu for her very first swim. Where did we go? Of course is the CSC @ Bukit Batok. Not surprisingly, Xi Yu loves water. We knew that already judging from how much she loves to play with the water during bath time. What surprised us was that she took the pool so well, better than Hao Re!

And that little man, initially said didn't want to go for swimming/water play, even though we had tried many ways to presuade him. At the end, he still refused to change to his swimming trunk. So we just left him with whatever he was wearing. But oh man, when he saw the pool, he got all excited and immediately asked to be changed and couldn't wait to jump into the pool already!

I have no choice but to join in also, as hubby couldn't possibly handle 2 kids in the pool on his own. Thanks goodness that despite all the extra kilos I have put on, I still managed to squeeze in to my swim suit, though I dared not look into the mirror :-P

That aside. We did have FUN in the pool! We took turn to play with either of them. And both of them were just so happy playing with the water. They are both very adventures in the pool. Like to splash and won't cry if their heads were immerged in water.

Once we were on the car, both of them knocked out almost immediately after the milk feed, despite that it was only about 11am :-) Xi Yu slept so well for a good 2 hours or so. Hao Re, as usual, took pretty long afternoon nap, this time it was 3+ hours and he usually sleeps very well.

After the four of us have rested (I didn't have a chance to take nap though, while hubby took a quick 30 minutes), we went to the Causeway point to do a quick shopping. Only there for about 30 minutes, and we were $120 poorer :-) Bought the toddler boaster seat (which to be used on a dining chair so that the kid can join in our dinner without having to be placed in a high chair). A Mickey Mouse sandal for Hao Re (surprised that he accepted Mickey mouse instead of a Thomas one). Then bought 1x 63 pieces and 2x 48 pieces puzzles for Hao Re, and all are in very nice Thomas the Train design! It's the most expensive puzzles we have bought so far, but the quality is really very good. We didn't think much to get it as Hao Re was so excited when he saw these puzzles! Of course, he is not able to fix the puzzles yet, but we figured it's good to get it and keep. When he is in good mood and really into doing puzzle, he is really good at it. The previous one was a 54 pieces with lots of animals one, and that he can almost (still needs our help though) finish it on his own already.

Now come to a bit of kay-poh-ing........

When we were at the Kiddy Palace, I overheard one mummy talking to her 2 daughters, in Mandarin - "you girls only know to ask me to buy toys for you, why you never asked me to buy assessment book or work book for you?" Come on, they are only in primary, still young children, maybe 7-9 years old, isn't it normal for children this age to ask for a toy from mum? Or do mummies/parents really expect the kids enjoy school work so much that they would ask for more assessment books? When I was in primary, I only wanted to finish what the teachers gave as homework and nothing else, no assessment book and no tuition at all, has the trend changed so much? When my kids grows up and starts school, I will be so worried and sad if they one day ask me to buy them more assessment/work book and not toys, that's a super dull childhood (sorry no offence to anyone, this is just my personal thought).

Conversation..........

We were at IMM today (Saturday). Walked pass a shoe shop having an opening sale. So brought Hao Re in as we are looking for a new pair of sandal for him.

Mama (picking up the sandals): 皓皓，你喜欢这双，这双，还是这双？这些鞋子都很美哩。你选一双，好不好？

Hao Re (picking up a pair of blue colour shoe with cartoon): mama, how about this one? 这个colour很美的，还有car car 在上面，很美，很美的！

I laughed till almost teared, since when he learned to use this sentence? Must be secretly learning from us :-)

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Mama: 皓皓，你是大baby 还是小baby?
Hao Re (paused to think): 不是。皓皓是甘皓日来的！

Hao Re, when asked, can say clearly, besides his own name, the full name of 爸爸，妈妈，妹妹，公公，婆婆，舅舅和叔叔 :-)

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Xi Yu only took 1 hr nap in total. So she knocked out at 8.30pm, left me with plenty of time. All the passed few hours spent on sorting out the previous months' photos and getting them ready for printing. Looking at those photos, I realised kids, especially babies, grow up and change very, very fast!

Xi Yu hasn't been sleeping well again since last week. Testing my patience again. But this time round, can activate SOS from hubby when I cannot handle. Hope she changes again soon and sleeps a lot more better :)

It's already 1.30 am now. Time for me to sleep now before my dear darling wakes up for her milk milk :-) Good night!

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