K.I.D.S

Exercise!! Exercise!!

2011-09-26T00:19:00.000+08:00

I am trying really hard to keep fit nowadays... Realised that I've been eating and eating but not really moving much. Tummy is building up... Though I may look slim overall.. but the tummy is protruding out more than usual and nooo! it is not no.3 on the way!

Hopefully my once a week aerobics class and at least once or twice a week jog will help to prevent the tummy from protruding more if not cut it down. I very much wanted to interest the kid to move with me. Dec is still quite ok, but Kenji is kinda lazy... just a short walk and he'll be asking us to carry him... weak leh...

Saturday morning all of us woke up early so we went for a morning walk and ended up at a fitness corner at sunset way. I must say the fitness corner is kinda cool, with weight lifting and arm tonning stations etc.

I did some sit ups and Kenji upon seeing me do that tried to imitate as well. Of course, his he dun have much strength at the abs so he only manage to lift his neck. The dad then went on to help and teach him how to do sit up hahaha. He looks really cute attempting really hard to achieve a proper sit up. Let's hope soon, my boys will be able to jog with me :)

My Simply Bo Chup First Born

2011-08-26T18:12:00.000+08:00

I was waiting for Declan to come home and this was what greeted me when he skipped off the school bus...

He actually survived the whole day with his shoes on the wrong side.... when I pointed that out to him he simply goes :" ohhh no wonder..." probably just realizing how come his feet felt weird the whole day today....

That's my child...

We are Back!

2011-08-17T13:56:00.002+08:00

After more than a year hiatus, we are back!! What triggers me to come back to blogging you may ask. I guess a big tpart of it is the fond memories that flooded me when i re-read the old posts that I did. The posts charted Declan's growing process well and I realised, nothing much was on Kenji. I hope he won't grow up and blame me for not charting his growth on the blog. To avoid that from happening and to allow me to continue having a reliable channel to help me remember my kids growing years, I am back! or should I say WE are back!

As of today, Dec is oredi in Pri 1 and Kenji is oredi in Nursery 2. oh boy.. how fast these babies grow... more updates on the way ;)

Urge to come back

2009-09-20T17:40:00.002+08:00

After hopping over to wordpress for the past 2+ years, I suddenly have the urge to come back to blogger.

Though wordpress is much more user friendly and seldom give me problems but I just didn't know how to customise it's limited templates....

Blogger, on the other hand got tonnes of free skin to choose from!! and I've got some basic html knowledge for me to customise a wee bit to my liking...

should i come back? hmmmm....

New Year New Home

2007-01-05T22:34:00.000+08:00

Dear All, I've finally put my feet down and decided to shift to my new home for the new year. Reasons being :

- This current blog takes donkey years to load,
- Some readers got problem accessing this site,
- The uploaded image and post will flicker every now and then,
- The posts will go blank sometimes,
- I got problems uploading the photos sometimes and it takes really long to upload the photos..
- The worse things was, some mamas cannot leave comments... arghhhhh.....

I was collecting feedback and some people still prefer this current template while some prefer that of my new home Ratio is 50:50. Thus I based my decision on the final vote from a "wise" man - my boss. His opinion is that the layout and theme seems better at wordpress and the best advantage is, it loads so much faster.

So bye bye blogspot, I am shifting to wordpress. Do hop over to our new home ok? See ya!

Traffic Watch

2007-01-03T16:50:00.000+08:00

A traffic jam was observed in a flat in the western area. A 2.5yr old todd is suspected of causing the jam. The actual reason of the jam is unknown. If you are in a rush, please avoid that area. - Traffic Watch brought to you by Baby Talk Blog

1st Day of 2007

2007-01-02T22:28:00.000+08:00

I put my non existence cooking skill to test on the 1st day of 2007. I attempted to prepare breakfast for the big one and the little one. Poor them to have a woman who can't cook as their wife and mum. Too bad!!! *snigger snigger*

That's what I managed to prepare. Sausages, Sardine sandwiches and eggs. That's the best I could do. :p The eggs were overcooked, the sausages tasted alright though a tad too oily, the sardine sandwhiches tasted so-so.

I've read the baking experiences of a few mums on their blog. Baking intrigues me. It look interesting and the products look lovely and tasty. I'm so tempted to pick up baking so that I can bake something nice for Declan but my determination is not there :p

My 2007 Resolution :

To get my driving license and pick up baking

Will I be able to fulfill my resolution? I've got 1 year to achieve both, having said that I feel the absence of my determination......

Our 2006 New Year Eve

2007-01-02T19:52:00.000+08:00

Our little family spent the last few days of 2006 and first few days of 2007 at our own nest. It's a great feeling to be at our own home. I really appreciate the space as well as the peace. We spent the afternoon at my dad's place because it's his birthday.

Me :"Declan, let's go! We going to kong kong's place."
Dec : "Yeah!!! Go kong kong's place see dog dog!!"
Me :" Go kong kong's place not to see Kong kong but to see dog??....." -_-"

What a filial grandkid my dad has....

So off we went to my dad's place. Of course when we were there, his focus was on the dog instead of the grandpa. He has this love hate relationship with ah girl (the dog). He loves to tease her and yet when he got her excited, Ah Girl will jump on him excitedly and he'll get frightened, cry and Ah girl will get a scolding from my dad for jumping on him. I feel sorry for Ah girl as I know she mean no harm. After he calm down, he'll go chase after Ah girl again... and she'll get excited again and when he turns around, she'll in turn be chasing him and he'll cry again and of course she, for no reason will get another scolding from the doting kong kong. It's a dog's life yeah? ha!

My sis was there too. This is a heartless woman whom the whole family hardly sees her. It's been a year since she last visited my dad and I had to nag and curse at her for her to show face today. She, just like me and some members of my family are game craze. I've mellowed down a lot when it comes to gaming. Where got time now?? I got a todd running my life! My sis had a Nintendo DS in her bag, the moment she flashed it out, I conquered the machine, even the presence of my little todd didn't deter me!!

We had an early dinner there and left for some last minute shopping before heading home to join the rest of the Lims in their "neighbourhood" party.

Same like last year, we headed down to Fullerton vicinity to catch the fireworks. We arrived early and even have time to take a snapshot near fullerton. His grandma make use of the waiting time to teach Declan his numbers.

Here's a few snapshots of the fireworks on New Year Eve.

Happy 2007 to all of you, may your new year be a peaceful and cheerful one.

Dr Junior Lim

2006-12-29T19:38:00.000+08:00

My boss granted me permission to leave office early as I was ill, down with a flu and fever.... I didn't bother to consult my hospital's doctor as I know they can't do much due to my drug allergy... The only way to cure me is to sleep through my illness.

So home I went and I slept through the afternoon till my Junior Lim came home from Childcare. Whenever he see our room door closed, he'll know that I'm back home. So I heard him calling :" Mummy... Mummy!!!!" and in he came crashing through the door.

He climbed onto the bed, sat beside me and placed his little palm on my forehead.

Dr Junior Lim : Mummy 生病(sick). Got fever..
Me : *cough* *cough* yeah mummy is sick, so you let mummy rest..
Dr Junior Lim : ohh Mummy 咳嗽(coughing). Later I feed you ok?
Me : Feed me? Feed me what?
Dr Junior Lim : Feed you your 药药(medicine). Sayang..

and he stroked me on my arm to soothe me. hmmmm somehow I feel slightly better from his TLC. ha!

Post Christmas Blabber

2006-12-28T12:06:00.000+08:00

Ok ok I know Christmas is already history but I have only 1 last christmasy post to blabber about before I move on. So do bear with me!

On X'mas eve, my mum brought a log cake as a pressie for Declan. We didn't cut the cake till boxing day simply because we kept it at mil's fridge and forgotten all about it.

When we took it out, the little boy simply can't keep his hands off the cake. He wasted no time in plucking out the "Merry Christmas" greeting and slurp the cream from it. He also insisted on cutting the cake himself. Thus it's as if we are celebrating his birthday again.

Do you all happen to notice that he is into "layering" his clothes? In the above pic, he's actually wearing 3 pieces of t-shirts one over another.... he insisted he wanted to wear 3...

The cheeky boy enjoyed the cake. He took it as supper for 2 nights continuously. He's alot like me when it comes to food. Both of us love noodles and cakes. Ohh by the time he cut the cake, he dirtied his 2 other layers of clothes and is left with the 1st layer.

Our X'mas Day

2006-12-26T10:20:00.000+08:00

I'm too lazy to craft the post. So I'll just post the photos and let the photos do the talking.

We woke up after noon on X'mas Day.

We having "Breakfast"

After breakfast it's pressie opening time!!! We bought him lots of pressies. Those in the yellow wrappings are hand picked by him. He chose Crayola crayon, marker, a train set and a clown fish for himself, while I added on hand paint for him.

Pressie Time!!

Torturing Nemo Time!

Colouring & Scribbling Time!

When the night falls, we shoot off to Orchard with Sil and her family to catch the X'mas lightings. We chanced upon some floats which were parked along Orchard Road. The are all quite nice. Dec took many pics together with his 2 cousins. I'm too lazy to upload the rest of the pics now as I am nursing a back pain. Maybe later when I am feeling better I'll try.

Our X'Mas eve

2006-12-25T23:54:00.000+08:00

Kiat hosted his colleagues at our own flat on x'mas eve. He put in a tiny weeny bit of effort to decorate the place.

See the 4 little dangling stuffs he hung from our dining table light? 2 bells and 2 shoes. He also bought some glittery fake flowers and plonk them in a make shift vase and that's it. That was his idea of x'mas deco...

That's my naughty boy posing with the flowers that the dad bought

To save the day, I went to Watson to get their mini X'mas tree. It can light up and buzz a little x'mas song. What's best was I got a "buy 1 get 1 free" deal. We don't own a proper x'mas tree and I don't intend to buy one, thus these 2 tiny ones are sufficient to tide us over.

The dad bought Gingerbread man to delight the kids and I also packed them little goody bags.

Gifts for our guests. This year, we've learnt to be better host, we prepared a little something for every guests and of course we planted 1 gift in that lot for Declan in order not to disappoint him.

Food glorious food!! We have plenty to eat and one of the guest brought Hagen Daz Ice Cream log cake. Yum Yum!!! The kids were excited when the log cake was presented to them

Our Guests

It was a relaxing gathering but tiring... The guests left at 1+a.m... We had been doing this for 2 years now... Wonder whether next year we will organize again or not...

Shopping Bug

2006-12-23T21:27:00.000+08:00

I'm bitten by the shopping bug and as a result, I've added 3 extra pieces of "cloth" into my wardrobe. I'm a fan of BYSI. I find their clothes not too bad and reasonably price and since I'm a member, I get another 15% off their merchandise. I brought back 2 of their dresses over the week.

I bought the purple dress with the intention of keeping it as my maternity dress. It is a long A line flair dress, thus it'll be able to contain the tummy till at least 6-7 months, depending on how big I am lah. No no people, don't mistaken, I'm not pregnant YET. Still trying, but I just can't resist this piece. After dicount, I only paid $41+ for it. Where on earth can you find such a cheap piece of maternity dress? On the average, a decent looking piece of maternity dress will cost about $80 - $100... In comparison this is only about half that amount.

Guess how much the black lacy tube dress cost? It's also $41+ after discount. Fantastic deal right?! It's a good piece for attending weddings and todate I've already 4 weddings in the pipeline for me to attend in Year 2007....

This is another good catch from Bugis Street. Only $20! Need to get a tube to go with this one as I'm not as well endowed as Pamela Anderson and even if I am, I'll rather cover up my modesty then to walk around worrying about showing more than I am comfortable with :p I'm a sucker for bargains! Branded lables are not my cup of tea. I'll never bear to part with a few hundred bucks for just 1 piece of cloth. I'll rather buy many pieces with the same amount of money. Having said that, if it's something for my kiddo, I'm willig to spend a bit more. That's the wonder of motherhood ain't it?

The Umbrella Boy

2006-12-23T13:22:00.000+08:00

"Oh Mummy! It's raining! I can take my umbrella already!" That's what he just told me when he saw that it's raining again. Way before this rainy season, I bought him a red Thomas the Train umbrella. He always wanted to hold our umbrella for us when we brought one along. The problem is, he'll wield the umbrella this way and that and very often, he'll hit someone else's legs and arms.... To solve this problem, I bought him his very own umbrella, a kid's size one, so that he can handle it easily without hurting others.

He fell in love with his umbrella. So much so that, last night while he was lying in bed, getting ready to sleep, he looked at his umbrella (which I hung at the side of our wardrobe) longingly and asked :" Mummy, may I have my umbrella please....?"

Of course I told him he can't get his umbrella as we are indoors, about to fall sleep and moreover there's no rain. I didn't want to be whacked in the face in the middle of night by his little red brolly.

Sis in law just passed me Keith's old raincoat, maybe one of this day, I should bring him down with his raincoat to let him play in the rain. hmmmmm that means, he'll need a pair of rubber boots..

Merry X'mas

2006-12-22T17:29:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was my office's year end party for our patients. My role was to play Santarina and distribute free Milo to our patients and visitors. It was fun though tiring. I realised there are alot of very skeptical Singaporeans. Before they accept our Milo, they'll ask :" Must I pay?" Some chose to wave us off or reject us even before we could say anything. Upon seeing others taking our cups, they then realised it was really free and they would come back and shyly ask for a cup.

Because of this event, we had a really late lunch. However, it was a very sumptous meal. Our in house kitchen pampered me and my colleague with the Christmas Meal served to our private patients. There's turkey, sausage, ham, water chestnut, pumpkin soup, fruit platter and mini log cake! Yummy yummy!!! Who says hospital food sucks?!

Not only was the meal yummy, it looks pretty too. See the tiny plate of log cake? Cute right?

I hereby wish all of you MERRY X'MAS!!! Enjoy your holidays!!!!!!

zzZZzzz

2006-12-21T17:13:00.000+08:00

The dad ambushed the pair of K.O mum and kid with the shutter. Sneaky Fellow! Can't quite remembered what made us so tired. We went somewhere and the moment we hit home, we were in this state within minutes and oblivious to the dad's sneaky act.

I didn't know how the stripey towel landed on my head. That's suppose to be Declan's blankey. He's hugging his other pink stripey blankie. He'll only accept stripey towels as his blankie, especially those with pink stripes. You give him any other print, he'll insist :" Not this one.."

*yawnzzzzz* with the chilly and wet weather, looking at these pics made me feel like snoozing....

Kiat's Illegitimate Daughter?

2006-12-20T18:09:00.000+08:00

Nah.. that's the daughter of one of my polymate. Ain't she cute?? I love her chubby cheeks.

That's her at about 1-2 days old. See how she had flourished into a chubby chick now. It's a wonder how fast this little things grow. Before we know it, we'll be old fraily grandparents....

Zoo AGAIN!

2006-12-18T19:56:00.000+08:00

My sister invited us to zoo today. Free entry as it was her company's Family Day. It's a really wet day today. We arrived at 8.45a.m and enjoyed about 2-3 hours of fair cool weather before it starts pouring. How often do you get to stroll in the zoo with long sleeve T and not a drop of prespiration??

He's getting better with his posing. He used to just stare blankly at the camera, now he's learnt to boogey in front of the camera and he will just stand near the prop he likes and say :"Mummy take picture."

The above are just some of the animals we came close to. I particularly love the white tiger, they look so graceful. We even encountered a kangaroo which hop across us to get to the other side of the pasture. Gave me a shock when i see this huge thing went boing! boing! boing! right pass me. I was quite amused too.

Dec spent the most time observing the python. We came across an exceptionally active python which kept dancing around in it's enclosure and Dec kept following it to and fro.

He and the active python

Coming up is my favorite picture of the trip. He and the ground squirrel!

Since it's family day, of course there will be goodies for the kids. Cotton candy, pop corn and balloon sculpting.

The sculpted balloon which he got was supposed to be a bear holding a heart but this cheeky fellow actually wore it like a hat.

Out of so many of our zoo trips, I think today's trip was the most fruitful one. He is at the super curious age which he'll keep asking :"What is this?" and also he'll keep saying :" I want to see" upon reaching each enclosure. The past few trips, when he was younger, always ended up with him sleeping in the pram half the time. Though he did fell asleep on this trip but not before he actually looked through 3/4 of the entire zoo. He missed the "Children's World" this time, where he could have played in the playground.

My next destination - to the BIRD PARK again! when the weather is not so wet.

*p/s* I hate his goondo looking hair!!! Ah kong's fault... but I am appreciative that he brought him to the barber but the style could have been better....

Stupid Blogger!!!

2006-12-15T17:11:00.000+08:00

Now I really understand why some mums are switching to wordpress. arghhhhh!! Blogger is also giving me problems when it comes to posting comments!!! It just refuse to accept my comments!!! For mums who are still on blogger/blogspot, if you don't see my comments, it's not because I didn't read your post... it's because blogger refuse to accept my comments!!!!! arghhhhhhhhh. Irene! you are one of them! I was trying to tell you the top which your mum chose for you was nice.....

Captain's ball update

2006-12-14T00:28:00.000+08:00

For those who wish me well for my Captain's ball match, sorry to disappoint you gals... my team lost. *sob* *sob* *sob*

Tomorrow (or should I say today since it's already pass midnight) will be our last game. If we win, we'll be 3rd, if we lost, we'll be 4th. Nevertheless, our boss had already asked her secretary to arrange for her to buy us lunch in view of our "hard work" and spirit! Yahoooooooo!! Food is my greatest motivation!!! I live to eat. Since we had already secure a meal, I think we need not play too hard tomorrow (or today) :x

Captain's Ball is coming to an end, just received a call this afternoon from HR to ask if I wanted to form a team to play inter institute Table Tennis. My GOD! Though I can play table tennis, but my level of skill is only suitable for trashing people like my Manager.. Hello YIH MING!! I hope someone will tell you about this. whahahahah. Playing inter institute game??? I better don't make a fool out of myself.

2nd PTC

2006-12-13T23:19:00.000+08:00

This is a backdated post. We went for Declan's Parent-Teacher Conference (PTC) last Saturday. Didn't really have time to blog about it till now.

First, let me share with all his Development Report.

From the English Teacher

Physical Development:

Enjoys playing with Legos, blocks. Tend to build long trains and move them around in the classroom.
*Bingo! He does that at home too!*

Able to kick ball
*Spot on! He loves playing soccer with the dad*

Intellectual Development

Starting to verbalize his thoughts
Able to respond to simple instructions
*I'll be worried if he can't do the above*

Enjoy picture books
*I'm quite skeptical though I know that he don't mind flipping through the books looking for things that interest him e.g fish or barney*

Emotional Development

May shout or cry loudly when someone disturbs him or snatch his toys.
*He displays this behavior whenever Keith is around. I'm not surprise.*

He will smile and plays with his friends
*I'm glad to hear that*

Social Development

Plays toys with his friends

Defends own possession
*I know he is not very keen to share certain of his toys with some people, especially Keith. I think it's just a phase, he'll get over it.

From the Chinese Teacher

Physical Development:

喜欢室内、外活动、能积极参加，喜欢做手工，涂画，自己可以吃饭，精力好，睡
得好!
睡得好? 那是因为他每天都很晚才睡!

Intellectual Development

对华文歌曲和跳舞感兴趣，模仿能力强，喜欢听故事，偶尔会讲:"老师，你看!" 的
句子。
老师讲得对，他喜欢唱歌跳舞。不过他在家里从来都没有耐心听我讲故事。他的华
语表达能力其实比老师观察的还要强。

Emotional Development

与其他幼儿相处好，热情，有爱心! 乐于助人，会帮其他幼儿拿水瓶。情绪好。
热情，是应为他搂着老师往她脸上狂吻。哈哈哈! 很开心听到他乐于助人! 不过呢，我不同意他情绪好。

Social Development

能和其他幼儿有互动，一起分享游戏的快乐。并能一起分享玩玩具的乐趣。
怎么英语老师与华语老师的看法有一点不一样? 一个说他不愿分享，一个却说他能
够分享? 我觉得他会选择对象分享。

The best comments come from his principal. She said :"他很有性格!" If he refuse to do something, no amount of persuasion nor coaxing will move him. Sometimes when someone call him, he won't answer if he don't feel like answering... I equate that to being stubborn....

Below are some of the art work he attempted. Nothing fantastic, but at least they are his effort.

The baby picture indicates that he is able to colour the big baby when the teacher ask him to identify the bigger baby. His is a blue baby!

He is trying to draw fireworks in the first pic. I think he did it quite ok. All of you can see that, his colouring skill still has loads of room for improvement. However, I will not be putting him on the chair and insist he practice his colouring everyday till he gets it right. I'll rather he do it at his own pace. The teachers observe that he is better with brushes than colour pencils.

This piece is my personal favorite. The Chinese Teacher shared with me that when she was teaching the kids to put the shapes together to make car, Declan specifically requested for 2 rectangles while the other kids all get one. Of course Teacher didn't reject him. All kids were given 2 circles as the wheels. When everyone is ready to hand their work in, she was surprised to see Declan had some how realised that his exceptionally "long" car will need another wheel to balance out. So he quietly took another circle from the table and paste it on without the knowledge of the teacher. The teacher was amazed, so am I :) I think he is trying to construct his favorite vehicle - train, instead of a car.

Well done Declan. I can see his improvement from the last PTC. Though not a very huge leap, but I am happy to observe that things he didn't do too well during the last PTC, he improved.

My Growing Boy

2006-12-13T16:44:00.000+08:00

Declan is indeed a big boy now. He knows how to reciprocate the care and concern which we showed towards him. Whenever he comes whining to me with a broken/spoiled toy, I'll comfort him and tell him :" It's ok, I'll buy you a new one ok?"

Yesterday, he tore the plastic cover of my office ID tag, I whined and he went :"It's ok mummy, I buy you ok? ok?"

Aawwwwww how can I not be ok??

He's also developed this funny habit of wearing his pants on his head. Sometimes, you'll even see him wearing his brief on his head as if it's a fashionable hairband....

He's also taken to asking WHY all the time. Just yesterday, while we were watching a chinese show enacting a terrorist attack he interrogated me as follow:

(watching the chaotic scene on screen)
Dec : Mummy why?
Me : Oh the uncle lost an arm.
Dec : Why?
Me : Cos a bomb exploded.
Dec : Why?
Me : Cos terrorist attack.
Dec : Why?
Me : -_-" ...............

Not that I am too impatient to his endless whys but I really do not know how to answer.... I am braving myself for more to come

Just a few more pics of him which I took recently of him enjoying his kiddy rides.

Captain's Ball Practice

2006-12-08T17:11:00.000+08:00

I brought along Declan to my captain's ball practice yesterday evening. I can't leave the house without him wailing, so might as well just toll him along. I got the dad to meet us at the hospital's court to babysit him while I play. We'll be playing our semi-finals game on Monday. Let's hope we win!! I'm keeping my fingers cross. If we win, we'll emerged the top 2 and we'll get dinner from Boss. I hate running, but I love ball games. Netball, captain's ball, table tennis etc.

While I was playing, the father and son was playing mini soccer. I think Declan enjoyed the little break away from home. We usually spend our evenings at home watching TV and him building his blocks. Of course my colleagues were having fun teasing my little boy.

For the sack of creating 2 teams for practice, some of us had to pull in the spouse/partner/boyfriend to make up the number. Whoever's in the pic was just half the team. The other half had gone home.

Wish me luck on this Monday!

Camping in Office

2006-12-08T02:30:00.000+08:00

For those who wonder why I was camping in my office, my hosp was actually providing the medical coverage for the Standard Chartered Marathon which was held last Sunday. The first race starts at 6.30a.m and thus, our medical team had to be there by 4-5a.m. For people doing logistics, like me, we'll have to move in much earlier to load things onto the transport. That explains why 2 other colleagues and me choose to sleep in, rather than having to travel from home to office at 2.am in the morning.

Since we gotta spend a long night in the office, we made the most use of the time, other than getting stuffs ready, we also spent a bit of time having fun.

See my cute colleague, working on her laptop straight after shower with her "bayee" head. This is a rare scene ok??! I hope she won't kill me if she found out that I post this pic of hers online :x How many of you have seen me in my glasses?? I bet not many. I'm blind like a bat.

The beautiful sunflowers are from the girlfriend of our colleague. She is such a dear, not only did she pack dinner for all of us from Soup Restaurant, she also presented a sunflower each to me and my colleague for our hard work. Hey shouldn't that be the job of our boss??? Hmph! Our boss has much to learn from her! On top of all the nice things she did, she also camped in with us and help us out till the next morning.

That's her feeding us dinner and the boyfriend was the photographer. This cute couple had a passion for photography.

She caught me "eating snake" without me even knowing it until I saw this pic........ Who can blame me?? It was really a long day... we only slept for 2 hours. I left home on Saturday 4p.m and only arrive back home on sunday 7p.m. In between that 20+ hours we only managed to sneak in 2 hours of sleep... It was tiring, fun and exciting. Exciting because there were quite a number of collapse cases. Looking at those who went down.. I really wonder why people push themselves so hard.. is it really worth risking your life to complete a marathon? I guess, I'll never understand since I hate running!

My Past 1 week

2006-12-02T18:19:00.000+08:00

I've not been updating for about 1 week. Busy lah. Below are bit and pieces of what happen over the last 1 week. Nothing really exciting but I'm happy.

First of all I got my new mobile!!! YEAH!!!!! my Sony Ericsson W850!!!! In white! It's really really coooolll!!! Kiat paid for it as my christmas pressie as promised. I paid for an extra battery which come with a free desktop charger though. I'm not complaining, really!

Secondly, I got the 2nd item on my wish list striked off too!!! I bought myself a new digital camera from which Sitex Show 2006 is now on at Singapore Expo. Instead of a sony T10, I got myself a Casio Exlim Z700. This new toy cost me $545, with a Samsonite haversack , 2 x 1G SD memory card, mini tripod stand, SD card reader, cleaning kit all thrown in. Please tell me it's a good deal.. I bought a red as red is one of my favorite colour!

While I was at Expo, there's also a John Little Sale, I ended up lugging back 7 sets of new bedsheet, to be shared with the family and not just for myself, and a new foldadble mattress. My intention was to go in to get some wet wipes only... See how easily ladies are defeated by the temptation of sales?

This post was crafted while I'm camping in the office... I'll be sleeping over in the office tonight.. been here since 4+p.m... need to set of from office by 3.30a.m tomorrow... that's why me and 2 other colleagues decided to camp in...

I miss wrestling with my boy already... That's him with his milk bottle getting ready to sleep but yet still cheeky..

Year End Wish List

2006-11-25T20:32:00.000+08:00

These are the items in my 2006 year end wish list.

Sony Ericsson W850i

Kiat had offered to take this item off my wish list for me as a christmas pressie. I'm really looking forward to laying my hands on this!

Sony DSC-T10

Kiat asked me to choose which item for him to help me strike off the list. I volunteered to strike this item off myself as it's more costly then the handphone. There is a PC show next week, I'm hoping I'll be able to get a good deal then. I'm still comtemplating whether to get a white or a pink one. I've been wanting to get a new digi camera for the longest time. The one I am using right now is a real dinosaur, only 3 megapixel and it's reaction is really damn slow!!! arghhhhhhhhhh!!! In fact I'm so desperate for a new camera that I don't mind if there is a good deal for another model or another brand.

Addidas Sports Jacket

I can't find a pic of the exact jacket that I wanted.. this was one of the closet. The one in my mind was a black one with gold letterings, without a hood.

I am a simple lady, that explains why there are currently only 3 items on my wish list. If God forbid me to get all and will only allow me to choose 1 out of the list, then it'll be the camera. I need it to capture the best moments of my boy. I'm keeping my fingers cross!!! Good deal!! please!! give me a good deal for my camera!!!

2006 Year End Concert

2006-11-25T17:47:00.000+08:00

We just got back from Declan's school Year end concert. Today was the very first time, Declan went on stage. Pardon me, but when the teacher told me that he is going to perform, I was actually quite doubtful. Not that I doubt the ability of my little boy, but they are still so young, the youngest of the whole lot. I really wonder, how the teachers can keep them under control.

Nevertheless, I was quite excited and was looking forward to see him perform. It didn't go too well right from the beginning. Upon arrival at NUS Alumni Hall, where the concert was, he kept asking me to bring him home. The teacher got to tear him away from me. He was brawling, the teacher assured me that he'll be calm once I'm out of sight. So, I left him with the teacher and got myself seated. The dad was there too of course.

The PG 1 was the first to kick off the performance and my oh my they were just soooo cute! Apologies, my photos are a bit dark. Pardon my lousy camera. A new camera is on my hit list. I love the little mice headgear they wore. Can you spot Declan? He is the 2nd mouse. My poor little boy was moody the whole time. They were entertaining, the moment they came on stage, all the parents were so tickled by them that before they even start their dance, everyone already started laughing.

My poor little mouse actually froze on stage upon seeing the crowd. He looked stunned. When the music started, the first little mouse beside him started crying, he remained as cool simply because he froze, like what I just mentioned. He didn't move a finger, he simply stood there cool like a cucumber, resembling the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles along Singapore River. Me like the rest was laughing away at the comical scene. Out of the 5 little mice, only 3 of them was performing as planned.

You can see from the various photos that from the beginning till the end, my boy maintained the same pose. He's a perfect candidate if you need a model for painting!

See?? He still didn't move an inch even when the others had sped off.
hahahah nonetheless, in our eyes, our little boy still did great. At least he didn't cry and he got the guts to go up stage. A video of them rehearsing was shown and during the rehearsals he did well. He really dance to the beat and did all the actions right. I believe he froze upon seeing that many audiences which was not simulated during the rehearsals.

This was him when he "thawed".

The proud papa mouse and our little mouse. By the way the dad was wearing a new pair of glasses and it's a pressie from me for his b-day.

The proud mama mouse.

In case you guys thought your eyes are playing trick on you, they didn't. His teacher did apply make up for him. I really wonder why boy still need to put on make up. Anyway he looks quite good with the make up, looks "very sweet".

Happy again!! and wet kisses from him to us!

You guys know why both of them are laughing so heartily? The big one was grossed by the fact that the little one gave him a lick on the face instead of a kiss and the small one was giggling at his own "victory"

As for me, I was trying real hard not to siam his wet sloppy kiss. Let's hope that he will do better in year 2007.

No Whining

2006-11-21T23:29:00.000+08:00

I always thought it's a girl's priviledge to whine and I used to believe only girls are good at whining. My boy had since proved me wrong.

He drives me nuts when he whines. He can just go on and on for the longest time. No amount of coaxing can make him stop... His "best" record so far was continuous whining for more than an hour. Arhghhhhhhhhhh AH BOY AH! STOP IT! STOP YOUR WHINING!

Declan and his 3 Languages

2006-11-17T20:24:00.000+08:00

Dec : mummy 我要follow你!
(ohhh no... my son is a typical Singaporean who mixes two language into one!!)
Dec : mummy 快点我等你!
Dec : 你吃什么?我要!
Dec : 什么来的?
Dec : 喂!你该嘛??

I'm quite glad that Declan did not grow up to be one of those "we the elite" type of banana man a.k.a asian trying to act class and am proud of the sad fact that they do not understand mandarin and can only speak english. Though he seems to prefer English, nonetheless, he'll reply you in mandarin if you speak to him in Mandarin. However, I always wonder where he got his malaysian accent from. His mandarin teachers are all from China. I suspect it's from the dad. His dad is a true blue Singaporean but somehow he also have a little Malaysian accent.

This little boy had also recognise the preferred language of people around him. He'll initiate to converse in English to me, Mandarin to his Kong Kong and Hokkien to his Ah Ma. Yes, my boy speaks Hokkien too! Phew!!! I always worry that he will not pick up his own dialect. Too often we seen communications between grandparents and grandchildren broke down as the younger generations do not speak their own Dialect. I always hope that Declan will pick up Dialect so that he can communicate with his grandparents. Indeed he did.

I will make sure he continue to juggle between these 3 languages.

The Angry Face

2006-11-16T18:33:00.000+08:00

I showed him his photo on this blog which is all about him

He got amused with looking at himself

He started to imitate his own pose in the picture. I saw it and I went :"DO THE ANGRY FACE!!"

THE RESULT

Change of Plans

2006-11-13T11:24:00.000+08:00

Remember the results of my child bearing ultimatum in May 2006? Frankly speaking, I wasn't quite thrill with the result. Though it allow me to pursue my dream, but it extinguises my hope of having another child. BUT now I'm glad to annouce there's gonna be a change in plans!!

open your ears and your eyes ok???!! I'M GONNA HAVE A 2ND CHILD!!!!!!!!! yahooooooo!!! I'm overjoyed! Kiat finally agreed to a 2nd child. I didn't force him ok??!! It was a mutual agreement. For that I will be pushing back my studies and probably won't be able to pursue my dream as a psychologist, but it's perfectly alright!! Being surrounded by a bunch of preggy blogging mummies really push my desire to have a 2nd kid over the edge! Agnes, Irene,Blurblur, you gals really motivated me!

Can you feel my joy?

I've gotten folic acid and will be taking it faithfully. Hopefully no.2 will come soon. Wait for my good news.

FANNIE WHEN YOUR TURN?? :x

Take Cover

2006-11-09T08:45:00.000+08:00

This was what he did when I tried to wake him up for school this morning...

- This blog was updated through my M1 mobile phone.

Fever

2006-11-06T00:20:00.000+08:00

Ah boy is running a fever again. We didn't quite know what trigger this bout of fever. He was alright in the morning. I only noticed that he was unusually warm after he woke up from his nap. His temperature measured 38.4 degrees C. The dad fed him some fever medicine and he was still able to fool around with his cousins when they came.

After the cousins left, he was still able to build a make shift shack with the help of his dad.

Raw material of Shack :

- Kong kong's mattresses
- Declan's pink and white stripe blankie
- Kiat's patchwork blankie which he had since he was a boy
- our pillows

No wonder that boy kept climbing over me while I was sprawled on my bed working on my laptop. I was wondering where was this busy bee shifting our pillows and blankie to. I followed his laughter and found him weaving in and out of the make shift shag with kiat lying in there.

Seems quite comfy huh? I had the honour of being invited into the shag. Quite comfy except that it's a little cramp.

With all these play, I thought his fever had went away. Little did I know, when he settled down and fell asleep, his fever shot up to 39 degrees C. I quickly fed him medication again and we got ready the bullet. If his fever don't come down in another 2-3 hours time, I'll probably insert the bullet or I may just bring him to the hospital Emergency department to get him checked.

That's him getting all rosy from the temperature. He's in a drowsy state now due to the medication. Get well real soon little chap. I've sms my boss in advance, telling him I may take half a day leave tomorrow morning. Just in case he think I "keng" as tomorrow is a Monday...

Food we ate in Hong Kong

2006-11-04T01:39:00.000+08:00

Frankly I don't really find the food in Hong Kong yummy. Perhaps I ate at all the wrong places. *shrugs*

This was my first meal in Hong Kong. It's actually pork ribs noodles. Kiat had sichuan vegetable with chicken noodles. I find mine extremely saltish. Nothing to cheer about. I can't complain, since I was so hungry, I didn't bother to really hunt around. I just find the most convenient little tea house and walked in.

What's to come is definitely more yummy!!!

It's mango frizz with fresh mango cubes plus mango icecream!!! DEFINITELY VERY SATISFYING for me!!! I am a mango craze!!! Look out for this dessert shop "许留山" if you are in hongkong. This is definitely a must try item!!! It cost a bout $4-$5 for that tub, but it's worth every single cent!

Everyone keeps telling me Wanton Mee must try must try, so I tried. Not nice leh... maybe wrong stall again... The only praise I can sing is they really have prawns inside their wanton... in Singapore, probably you'll only get part of a shrimp in a wanton.

Breakfast
These are the other food we ate for breakfast while we were there.

This is a set meal which we had at Australian Dairy Company near Jordan. The name sounded so western, but on arrival you'll realised that it's settings are far from western. Each set comes with a plate of macaroni with ham in soup, toast and egg plus a drink. All for HK$20 (I think). Quite value for money. Taste wise was ok, I like the thick toast.

This is dim sum from their market. A really run down market which looks like the old time chinatown market. I was a bit worry about the cleanliness but nevertheless decided to try. For a total of about 6 choices plus 2 drinks we paid about HK$59. It taste quite good but of course when compared to what we ate on our last morning in a chinese restaurant, it's a great great difference! My advice is, if you are a dim sum craze, you should go for dim sum in restaurant. Taste is superb and price is reasonable. I survived! No tummy ache!

Roast Goose

Roast Goose is another dish which I was constantly reminded to try. So I went hunting for their famous Yung Kee Restaurant which is suppose to serve very good roast goose. I had a hard time hunting it down. My verdict, nothing to worship about. It taste just like roast duck but tougher. The serving was extremely small.... and it's quite expensive.

Dessert!

Dessert save the day!! I simply love their mango dessert!!

We had mango filled dumpling, mango with coconut roll, pomelo mango, mango sago!! MANGO RULES!!!!

Look at our face and you'll know how satisfying these desserts are!!

Snacks

Their little little snack rocks too!

Pig's tongue and octopus! Delicious! a singapore dollar a stick!

Crime Scene

2006-11-02T23:08:00.000+08:00

Who did this?? Who has been 'downloading' the content in my wallet into the Barney backpack? -_-"

- This blog was updated through my M1 mobile phone.

Tales of Babies

2006-11-01T18:26:00.000+08:00

Happy Baby Tales

I was reading IMMomsdaughter's blog entry on "Why I love my girl?". In the second half of her entry, she shared her views on the difference of having a girl.

As I read on, I noticed, the differences that she pointed out of a girl, fits exactly what Declan is.

- Declan decides on what he wants and doesn't wants to wear. If he doesn't like any of his clothes, he'll remove it on his own (if we put it on for him) and says : I don't want, this one not nice one!"

If we praise him :" Wah Declan you look so handsome in this." He'll give you a shy smile which spreads across his face.

- When he likes something that I wear, he'll say :" Mummy, nice!"

- He loves to give us wet/sloppy kisses on the lips and cheeks.

- Quite often, he'll come to us and says :"Mummy/Daddy I love you!"

- He'll insist he only want his orange colour crocs on certain days.

hmmmm but mine is a boy!! I wonder whether it's because I keep thinking of a baby girl when I was preggy that resulted in him having these girly traits. heheheh I still like baby girls as I always think they are tamer and sweeter.

Sad Baby Tales

Ok, so much about my own boy. I am not complaining about his traits. In fact I love his girly traits. While I am rejoicing over the sweet actions of my own boy, somewhere on this island, a mum just lost her 1 year old boy.. :( Kiat's cousin's 1 year old boy passed away this afternoon. Sad isn't it?

The poor boy's lungs got infected due to the stupid haze... his health and immune system was already very weak before the haze invaded our sunny island. The haze plus his impeding heart problem, took him away from his months just 12 months after his arrival. Today was a gloomy rainy day, I'm sure the gloom added on to the mum's sadness.... I feel for her...

While 1 mum lost her child, another mum chooses to let go of her child due to marriage difficulties.... Sad... but I guess she don't have a choice. Putting myself in her shoes, it is indeed quite scary to raise a toddler and be pregnant while dealing with a very likely separation/divorce. Though the baby is not in me, but somehow I can feel a tiny phantom hand tugging at my heart when I heard the decision to let it go.... I wish the baby well and hope he will find happiness elsewhere when given a 2nd chance....

Where were we?

2006-10-29T23:17:00.000+08:00

what is this boy looking at so intensely?
The Fountain of Wealth

We were at Suntec this evening. We brought ah boy to Toy R Us. Toy R Us is all ready for halloween, costumes are everywhere. We found some rubber head gear and made Declan wore them.
See the "little bimbo"? I think he'll look pretty if he's a girl. Ha! There were many more cute ones but this chap just can't keep anyone of them on long enough for me to snap pics. He keeps saying :"Not nice one"

Our purchase of the day was a pair of arm float, a bubble gun and a water gun. New toys to keep this active little chap occupied.

Accidental Success

2006-10-29T14:39:00.000+08:00

Little boy woke up in the morning and annouced :"I want to 'she she'"

I replied :" Just do it baby, you are wearing diaper." I proceeded to give him a hug and a tap on his butt. eh?! opps I forgot to help him put on diaper last night. I helped him pull down his pants and let him pee in his potty. While he was peeing, his doubtful mother went into the bedroom and use her hands to feel around the mattress.

Phew! It's all dry. He slept through the night without his diaper and he didn't wet himself! SURPRISE! But no, I am not ready to let him try sleeping without his diaper again tonight. I need to be mentally prepared for this first, in case he flood us in the night.

古灵精怪

2006-10-29T00:11:00.000+08:00

This little monkey is very into this expression now. Cringing his nose and raising his eyebrows.

He knows that it tickle us whenever he does this, so, everytime I request him to do this expression, he seldom fail me.

The dad brought him swimming this afternoon. It's been a long time since he last swam and seems like he is more accustom to the water now then before. Previously, he'll just stay near the edge and shallow part of the pool, now, he'll wander to the center of the pool. He even pretended to swim by supporting himself on both his hands while he floats and kicked his leg. He even crawled forward in the water using just his two hands while his legs float and he proudly annouced to me :" Mummy I swimming!"

I didn't join the pair in the pool as it was not "convenient" for me and also because I need to replace a pair of swimming costume. Declan came up, walked to me and asked :" Mummy, you want swimming?" and tried to lead me into the pool. I told him I can't swim and asked to just enjoy himself and seems like he really did enjoy himself.

After swimming, he still wanted to go "kai kai", so we brought him to west coast park. He had a great time there too. He totally forgotten about his nap.

We end the trip with a meal at McCafe and MacDonald's. I should say this boy had a fulfilling Saturday. Where should we go tomorrow?

Advance Driving Theory Test

2006-10-28T13:55:00.000+08:00

I hate to say this... but I guess I can't run away from it. I FAILED my Advance Driving Theory Test. So 丢脸!! To think that I am currently considering whether to sign up for a Psychology course and I actually failed such a simple test!! It seemed simple at least...

Frankly I didn't prepare well, I only flip through the book 1 day before the test and it was after midnight that I quickly browse through the content. All thanks to my little master who keep insisting I draw pictures of train for him even though I am not much of an artist.

When I first took the test 8 years ago, it was done on paper and one had to wait for the result slip to be posted to your address. Now, it's different. Its all computerise. The suaku me went into the room and saw rows of terminals. I was assigned a station and I started to look high and low for the keyboard to the terminal. I found none. You know why? Because it is a touch screen terminal... kaozzz...... the moment you finish your 50 questions and hit enter to confirm you want to end the test, the result will flash right in front of you.

Yours truely had the honour of this message :"you have FAILED" flash right in front of my terminal after I hit the enter key. My next try will be on 8th Decemeber, let's hope I will not receive the same message again...

Places I visited in Hong Kong Part 2

2006-10-26T17:54:00.000+08:00

The Clock Tower

This is the much talk about clock tower at Tsim Sha Tsui. Nothing much to do there except looking at the clock tower and perhaps snapping a few photos.

Victoria Peak

We took a tram up this "must visit" peak as recommended by friends and most of the travel guides. We did a right choice by going up at about 5+p.m and stayed through 9+p.m, visiting Madam Tussaud Musuem in between. As such, we were able to view both the day and night view from the The Peak.

The views were a bit blurred due to the haze. Apparently, haze is very common in Hong Kong due to the industrialisation of Shen Zhen. We can actually see the clouds (or was it haze) looming on top of the tall buildings at night. Kinda cool! Remind me of scenes out of Ghostbuster!

Mdm Tussaud Wax Musuem

Look at all the great hunks and beauties I met there! Can you recognise who is who?

It's worth visiting. There are actually more figures in there, just that we did not take pics with all of them.

Part 3 to come. This is really tedious...

Places I visited in Hong Kong

2006-10-25T18:21:00.000+08:00

I must say that, this trip was quite a fulfilling trip. Though I spent alot of time navigating and leading one lazy man around, we did manage to cover quite some places within the short span of 3 days, effectively.

黄大仙 Temple

Probably due to the just pass mid autumn festival, the temple had lots of nice beautiful lanterns. There are even some huge ones floating in their pond.

They got nice stoney views too, even waterfall. See the hardworking me burying myself in my guide book, trying to navigate and organize our trip??

Avenue of Stars

Avenue of Stars is at Tsim Sha Tsui. Here, you will see the hand prints of many Asian stars on the pavement.

Kiat got his hands in Andy Lau's hand prints.

Hong Kong Art Museum

Every Wednesday public will get free entry into the Hong Kong Art Museum. We happened to be there on a wednesday, thus we get to enjoy the exhibitions for free! I particular love this
"Hair Dialouge" exhibition. Can you imagine all the exhibits are made using human hair??

They actually provide materials for members of the public to express their own interpretation of hair. I didn't try though.

Can you imagine these screens are all made by hair? All the letterings are sculpted using hair. No joke! They are really sooo soooo beautiful.

On top of the Hair Dialouge exhibition, I also caught the education exhibition. The moment u step into this hall, you will see drawing materials provided, encouraging members of the public to draw a potrait of themselves. I was never an artist and was never good at drawing. Nonetheless, I got a little infected and started to doodle on the materials. Kiat didn't want to do it at first, but I encouraged him to join in. It was really fun! This was one thing I enjoyed most from this trip!

Our masterpieces. hehheheh

The art pieces of other visitors

So much for now. Digest these first. I'll upload photos from the trip again in my next post. The uploading speed tonight is really slow..... it's killing me.... Good night folks!

Things I bought for Declan

2006-10-24T18:28:00.000+08:00

Agnes, you are quite right. Ever since the arrival of the little one, all we ever shop for is for them. These are the stuffs I bought for him on the first day of my trip.

For the rest of trip I added on a cap, another T-shirt which says :"I'm lost in Hong Kong" and a sesame street soft ball for him.

His favorite item among the loot is none other than the toy bus.

Back to Reality

2006-10-22T22:21:00.000+08:00

I'm back since Friday night. Declan was at the door to welcome us back. He kept chanting :" Hello hello" excitedly. How I miss his million watt smile. Mil said he didn't miss us. We were told that when he was asked :" where is your Daddy and Mummy?" He'll just reply :" Work work. " matter of factly.

I spent my first half hour home harrassing my kid. When I was at Hong Kong, whenever a toddler skipped pass me, I'll be reminded of my little monkey. As many of you might had guessed and adviced correctly, Declan was the ultimate "winner" of this trip. He got the most pressie. So much about my trip for now. I'll share the photos and some things about this trip in later posts. Too lazy to deal with them now :p

Back to reality, Declan's appetite is still at the top of my hit list. He hardly eats. Sil recommended Appeton.

She shared that her friend gave her kids Appeton and their appetite improved. I happened to catch a glimpse of the advertisement on TV last night, so, I decided to give it a try. Hope it helps.

I got a bottle of Appeton and another bottle of Vidaylin from Abbott at Guardin Pharmacy earlier this evening.

Vidaylin is a multi-vitamin. I thought since he's not eating much, I should just try giving him some supplement until his appetite improves.

Let's hope Appeton works.

Sickly me to HK

2006-10-17T06:28:00.000+08:00

Today is my departure to HK. I woke up with a queasy gastric & vomitted some white foamy stuff. I cough through the night. I hope it's not gastric flu. I told Kiat, if I fell real ill then he should go walk around on his own while I rest in hotel. Thank god I'm feeling slightly better after checking in. My little boy should still be sleeping soundly. We'll miss him.

- This blog was updated through my M1 mobile phone.

Both Sick

2006-10-15T20:04:00.000+08:00

2 days before our trip and both Dec and myself are ill. He is coughing, having running nose and vomitting while I am coughing and having sore throat and headache. It must be the haze. Hope that he'll be well soon.

- This blog was updated through my M1 mobile phone.

Heavy Hearted

2006-10-14T01:18:00.000+08:00

In about 4 days time, me and the dad will be flying off to Hong Kong for a short trip. This will be our first trip ever since we got together. We didn't go for our honeymoon when we got married due to "insufficient funds". I should be on holiday mood now. People are expecting me to be extremely excited and should be looking forward to the trip.

Frankly... I am not excited at all and in fact I do regret a little for booking the holiday.. Reason being...... I'LL BE LEAVING THE LITTLE ONE AT HOME.........

Most parents will want to bring their kid along when they go for holiday. I've chose to leave him behind as I wanted to enjoy my long awaited holiday without having to deal with a fussy todd and also to be able to indulge in shopping and eating without getting frustrated over having to chase the little one around.

sigh... Did I make the wrong decision to leave him behind? As the day gets nearer, my heart weighs heavier... how I wish I can cancel the trip and get back my money.....

Stickers

2006-10-11T18:32:00.000+08:00

What's with kids and stickers? I realise alot of kids love stickers. Dec definitely love them. I bought a some mickey mouse stickers for him and see what he did to them?

He mistook them for tattoos??

Revamping

2006-10-10T19:04:00.000+08:00

Dear All,

I am in the midst of revamping my blog. Instead of keeping 2 separate blogs for Dec and myself, after 1 year plus of trial, I've decided to tell all our stories in one place.

Due to the time constraint. I'm making the changes bit by bit. So you'll realise little little things like, foreign language appearing, instructions being published, Blog title colour too light etc etc. Just ignore these and bear with me for the time being.

Cheers!!!

Our Weekend

2006-10-09T00:35:00.000+08:00

Saturday

As expected we had to cancel our zoo trip due to the haze. Since I had to collect my passport on Saturday, we took the chance to visit Cafe Cartel for breakfast. Cafe Cartel use to serve good food when they first started. Their standard had since dropped quite a bit. The food no longer looked as presentable and they were all too oily. Anyway, Declan seems to enjoy his breakfast that day.

We pose for the camera while waiting for the food to arrive

The waiter brought us bread while we waited for our food and the dad spreaded some butter on it and give it to Dec.

Instead of eating the bread with the butter, that boy just licked off the butter and discarded the bread. This boy got no qualms about swallowing the whole cube of butter on its own. We ordered cold fresh milk for him too.

He took 2 sips and rejected the whole glass. I've came to realise that he didn't like fresh milk unless it's chocolate milk.

This was what we ordered for him.

He loved the way the egg was done. Can you see that it's got 2 eyes and a round stubby nose? The boy even asked to eat the "nose". He ate quite a fair bit. I was really happy to see him eat.

After breakfast we went to collect my passport but gotta leave empty handed as the blur me forgot to bring along my existing passport... thus couldn't collect the new one.... We went Raffles City, then Taka and had a very light lunch there. 3 of us shared a Mac Happy Meal + a large fries + a large Green Tea.

After lunch, we went on to Shaw Centre to buy myself a earring display stand and we headed home and caught some ZZZZZsss.

The dad and I managed to sneak out in the night and went clubbing at MOS with my aunt, uncle and Alex (Kiat's friend).

Can you tell from the pic that my aunt is nearly 40??? I'm 30. Can you tell the difference in our age from the pic?? Probably not that much diff right??? Do I look haggard or does she looks young??? I prefer the latter :x

That's Kiat and Alex

Clubbing once in a long long while can be quite fun!!

Sunday

Got a bit of hangover, not too bad though. After a shower and breakfast, I was fresh enough to go for my driving lesson at 11.30a.m. We didn't really do much today as we were quite tried due to staying out late last night. We just watched some TV and then the 3 of us napped till 6p.m.

Dec woke up asking for fishball and egg. So he got fishball noodle and a sunny side up for dinner. As for ourselves, I've been wanting to eat at the newly opened "Botak John" at one of the clementi coffeeshop. After seeing a tv show recommending it, I kept craving to go there. Finally we had a chance to eat there tonight. Guess what? The coffeeshop was jammed pack with people, all waiting to eat from the same stall!! The waiting time was 45mins-1hr. Since Dec was already fed, we thought we might as well try it out since we were already there.

So we waitied for 1 hour and this is how my order looked like.

A set meal of Giant chicken sausage. The serving of fries was very very generous. It look as if they sliced up one huge potato and gave it all to you! Unfortunately the fries tasted real dry. The sausage was yummy though. This set cost $7. I would say it's quite reasonable since the portion is big. Taste wise, not that fantastic, really not worth the 1 hour wait...

We ended our weekend with Declan "flying" all the way home.

"Un-refine" Poet

2006-10-07T01:55:00.000+08:00

I forget to mention that reciting poem while watching the moon was one of our ancestors favorite past time during moon cake festival.

Other then teaching Declan some chinese idioms and phrases, Bil will also recite a Chinese Poem with Declan if Dec "gatecrash" and decide to bunk in with him. Few days back, while Dec was lazing on bil's bed, the reciting ritual started. So, guess who is the "un-refine" Poet??

Bil :窗前..
Dec :窗前..
Bil :明月..
Dec :明月.. (instead of ming2 yue4, Dec pronouces as min2 yue4)
Bil :光..
Dec :光..

As Declan is still not very conversant in his language, Bil gotta break up 1 single phrase into 2 words by 2 words, so that he can catch up.

Bil :疑是..
Dec :疑是..
Bil :地上..
Dec :地上..
Bil :霜..
Dec :霜..
Bil :举头..
Dec :举头..
Bil :望明月..
Dec :望.. EH 我要 "she she" leh.... (he needed to go pee...)

-_-" such anti climax right my son???

Hazy Moon Cake Festival

2006-10-07T01:10:00.000+08:00

It's mooncake festival once again. I especially like this festival as I am a great fan of mooncakes! Preferably double york! Which equals to about 1000 calories per piece mooncake. Yummy!!!! Very Sweet, very sinful but it's only once a year!!

As usual, latern and mooncake festival goes hand in hand. Here's the little one roaming around with his big head bear paper latern which the dad bought for him.

The haze is real bad today, thus we decided to bring him indoor soon after. I am not sure about them but for myself, I can feel that my throat and lips have gotten real dry and my breathing not as smooth.

Before I brought him out, the dad keep asking me to be "careful" as the haze was bad. I was asking him, how can I possibly avoid the haze and be careful if I am outdoor?? Do enlighten me if you do have a solution. (Don't ask me to wear a mask, as yet.)

Seems like we have to shelf our trip to the zoo tomorrow :(

Happy Children's Day

2006-10-01T21:13:00.000+08:00

It's children's day today. Happy children day to all children out there. We didn't really do anything nor go anywhere special today. We just get by like any other ordinary days. The thing worth mentioning was Declan reached another of his major growth milestone today! He went diaperless throughout the day!

Actually he's been going diaperless at home for quite sometime, with "little miss cue" once in awhile, especially when he got too engross in play. He's able to tell us when he needs to pee. However, we were not quite confident with him holding his poo. When he went diaperless at home, there's quite a few occasion that he pooed in his pants.

Yesterday, we suspected that he might had learnt to hold his poo till being brought to the toilet. We were at natas fair and he told me :"Mummy, ng ng." I thought he had soiled himself, I peeked into his diaper, nothing. So we thought he might had farted and he thought he pooed. Moments later he again said:" Mummy, ng ng." Again, I found no trace of poo when I peeked into his diaper. I asked the dad to bring him to the toilet to double check, in case I missed anything. When both men came back, the dad said that his diaper was clean and shared that Dec did poo after he put him on the toilet. Both of us praised him :" Well done!"

This morning, the dad told me Dec mentioned "ng ng" again. Thus the brought Dec to the toilet and true enough, he did need to poo and he did it in the toilet. I was told he even waved and said bye bye to his poo poo when the dad flush the toilet.

That made me confident that my boy is ready to be "promoted" from diaper to brief. I've bought 3 pairs of Tigger and Pooh briefs for him a few months back, but he never got the chance to put them on. Today I pulled out a pair and let him wear it.

Ah boy's 1st brief

I was just lamenting about his poor appetite in my earlier post but today, when he went by Old Chang Kee, he asked for fishball and he ate all of it. When we passed by Bengawang Solo, he asked for panda cake and he gobbled it down too. He also took some mash potato and fries when his parents were catching a late lunch at KFC. He seems to be in a good mood today. When he was taking his drinks he offered to cheers with me. He went :" Mummy, cheeerrsss!" and raise his drinks.

I'm happy! So I decided to reward my boy with a scoop of SCOOPZ Jack fruit ice cream.

Of course, he ain't suppose to finish the scoop all by himself. We shared, while the daddy watched. Not that I'm stingy and not willing to treat the dad. It's that the dad wasn't feeling too well and he said he didn't want any.

I bought another 3 pairs of Barney briefs for him so that he'll had sufficient to change them around and his final Children Day's pressie was a giant colouring book.

Dwindling Appetite

2006-09-30T20:35:00.000+08:00

Dec's appetite had been dwindling. He'll only take a few mouthful of his lunch/dinner and reject the rest of it. I'm really got no idea how to solve this problem. We've tried giving him different food. Rice, noodles, cereals, pastries, cakes, bread, fast food, meat, fish, pasta etc etc. nothing really seems to interest him... Not even when the food is all dressed up in one of his favorite mode of transport - the aeroplane.

These photos were taken some time in August at Sake Sushi. We ordered a set of yummy looking kid's meal for him. He ate some of the meat balls and reject the rest of it.

I'm just glad that at least he is still taking his milk.

I reflected this problem to one of his childcare teacher, who assured me that this is a common problem among kids his age. She told me that it happened to her own kids and she ended up giving them supplement and vitamins. I wonder whether I should adopt her method and start giving Dec vitamins and supplement too!!

Mummies... any idea how I can improve his appetite?

Who Got Money?

2006-09-28T11:54:00.000+08:00

On our walk home yesterday evening, the brightly lit Coca-Cola vending machine caught the little boy's eyes.

Dec :"I want to buy water." while pointing to the machine.
Me :"Do you have money with you?"
Dec shakes his head while smiling sheepishly.
Me :"You see? No money, so you cannot buy."
Dec looked down (I was carrying him), pointed to my pocket and said :" Mummy,这里有钱..." and he gave me that sheepish smile again.

chili padi........................ and of course I didn't give in.

Freak Accident

2006-09-23T00:08:00.000+08:00

A scary incident happened at home yesterday. The thought of it still sent shivers down my spine. The Ikea chest of drawers that we bought recently, collapse on Declan. It all happened so suddenly that my heart nearly jumped out through my throat.

I was watching some show on youtube on the bed when suddenly I heard a loud crash followed by Declan's cries. Within split seconds of the crash I turned to see the chest of drawers leaning forward with Declan beneath it. It was fortunate that the chest of drawers could not fall flat on Declan as there was not enough space between the chest of drawers and my bed for it to fall flat. I jumped out of bed and quickly use all my strength to hold up the chest to prevent the weight from hurting Declan. With both my arms holding up the chest, I could not pull Declan out, how I wish I got a third arm at that moment. I screamed for Mil at the top of my lungs. She took her own sweet time to respond. While I shouted for her to come quickly, she did not. She took her own time and replied :" Wh..y..? What is it??" I feel like cursing at her that moment, luckily I didn't and just call out :" JUST COME NOW !!! QUICKK!!!!"

A few moments later, she finally appeared and I guessed she was quite shock at the sight too. I asked her to quickly pull Declan out while I hold up the chest. The poor boy was crying non stop. When the chest fell forward, all the drawers flew forward at the same time and Declan was hit on the forehead and the cheeks by the drawers. He got a bump on his head and a red streak across his cheeks.

After she pulled him out, Declan had to cope on his own while I get Mil to help me pull out the drawers one by one so that I can have my arms off the chest. Only after that, then I could free my arms and go hug my crying baby. He stopped crying moments after I hugged him. I guessed he cried more out of fright rather than pain. Mother and son sat hugging each other on the living room sofa for quite sometime. Both our hearts were racing. I can't imagine what will happen if the bed is not there and the chest fell fully forward and pin Declan's little body down under.

The room was in a mess, everything on top of the chest of drawers were all over the floor and bed, all 6 drawers were lying everywhere. After we settled down, I tried fixing back the drawers but I realize they were a little too heavy for me. I called the dad who was at his company’s party to relate the incident to him and guess what was his reply??? "Ohh do you need me to come back immediately?" After hearing that I fumed like mad and replied :"UP TO U!" and slammed down the phone.

I stormed into the room and managed to pick up all six drawers with their full contents and fixed them back. Anger does give the weakest being the most powerful strength!

Baby Bunnies

2006-09-20T16:11:00.000+08:00

The bunnies at Dec's childcare answered to our government's call for more babies. All in all 3 mummies downloaded a total of 16 tiny babies! I'm really amazed with their reproduction ability. Dec love the bunnies, he loves observing them and naturally he is quite intrigued with the wriggly babies. Here are some pics of the babies in 3 different stages of their "infancy". The first lot already grow quite a bit, the tail had shorten, ears had poke out and they have grown fur! Cutie!

Stage 1 - totally no hair, eyes still close. Kiat thinks they look ugly.

Stage 2 - slight hint of fur, still not so adorable.

Stage 3 - super adorable!! they are so tiny, just about the size of my palm!

Dec just love them

I want 6,7,8,9,10 ?????

2006-09-10T23:20:00.000+08:00

Saturday night I came back from my DND at 1+a.m to discover that my little boy is still wide awake waiting for me. The dad said he's been asking for me the whole day. awwww.. how heartwarming..

Needless to say, the little boy stuck on to me like a leech when he saw me and refused to let me go bathe. As I carried him into the room, we walked pass his chest of drawers and he pointed to my bottle of nail polish and kept chanting :"I want this!" He refused to give up .. sigh... i've got not much choice but to bring down the bottle for him.

Ever since he saw me putting on nail polish once, he's obsessed with coloring his own toe nails... That's a bad sign ain't it?

He insisted I paint his toe nails for him, to pacify him, I painted 2 of his toenails with a very very nude colour. He's not satisfied.

Dec :"Mummy I want..."
Me :"Mummy painted for you already, see? I painted 2 already."
Dec :" Mummy.. I want 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.."
Me :" ?????"

Do you get what he meant? He wanted to paint all 10 toe nails, but he didn't know how to put it correctly as "Mummy I want to paint all". Instead he counted out all his toe nails for me.

I know I should not paint for him, but I'm not prepared to handle a sticky, wailing toddler at 1+a.m. He ended up sleeping only at 3.30a.m...

I'll solve the toe nail painting obsession by hiding all my nail polishes in my wardrobe and never to let him see me painting my nails anymore.

Bad Omen

2006-09-08T01:15:00.000+08:00

This afternoon I opened up the fridge, intending to get a piece of cheese to go with my bread, somehow the whole row of colourful bottles containing medication caught my attention instead.

I was wondering :"Wow, how come I never realise we have soooo many bottles of medicine lying around in the fridge." I picked up a bottle and look at the name, it belongs to Declan. I picked up another bottle, it also belongs to Declan. I picked up the 3rd bottle, it, still belongs to Declan.... Ended up, majority of the bottles in there belongs to the little master. This also signifies, how often my little boy falls sick. I picked up my handphone and snap a pic of this row of medication and thought maybe I can add a post on this blog regarding this. Anyway, thinking of it now, what's soooo interesting about these bottles of medicine right??? What's there to blog about right?? choy choy choy!!!!

I guess, it's all just a bad omen..... My little boy then came home sick in the evening... He's develop eye irritation again, probably due to impending flu virus. His eyes were watery and I can spot a few burst blood vessels in the white, I guess it's due to too much rubbing. He got a running nose and a cough as well.

The dad will be bringing him to a doctor tomorrow..

Long Long Train

2006-09-08T01:06:00.000+08:00

I came home one day and saw Declan building this long long train with his building blocks. He was so immersed in the task that he didn't really care that we just got home. (usu he'll rush up to greet me when I'm home)

Though it's not some out of the world architecture, somehow I still feel a sense of satisfaction seeing him able to translate his likings into something material. He loves MRT train, he loves to watch it and ride in it, now he even enjoys "building" a long chain of blocks and pushing it around pretending that it's the MRT train.

Look how satisfied he himself is after accomplishing his task.

The Songs he sings

2006-09-05T23:33:00.000+08:00

and he sings it HIS WAY

1) Baa baa black sheep

Baa baa black sheep *slur slur slur slur slur* YES SIR YES SIR.... and that's all he knows of this song

2) This old man - and that is the only 3 words out of the whole song that he catches.

3) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

*softly* twinkle twinkle little *loudly* STAR
*softly* slur slur slur slur slur slur *loudly* ARE
*softly* slur slur slur slur slur slur *loudly* HIGH
*softly* slur slur slur slur slur *loudly* SKY

Seems like he can only accentuate the last word of every sentence of the song.

4) 娃娃国，娃娃兵 – and he can only sing the title, yes just this 6 words, no less no more.

5) 小老(he pronounce yao instead of lao)鼠, 上灯台，偷吃油 and he'll skip straight to "meow meow meow" and then the end.

6) row row row your boat and then he'll skip to "meiyili meiyili" slur slur slur slur.

7) National Anthem! Can you believe it? He can sing the national anthem?? Of course not the full anthem, as above, he'll slur to the tune and accentuate on the last word of each sentence.

8) Humpty Dumpty

"aumty" dumpty sat on the wall, aumty dumpty FALLLL!!!!

9) His 泥娃娃 still no progress, still at that 3 words.

10) Rain rain go away, come again another day.

Speech Development

2006-08-30T23:35:00.000+08:00

Sentences and phrases which he's been saying a lot :

1) Mummy wait me. (Actually he meant to say :"Mummy wait for me")

2) I don't want

3) I want Yakult

4) Mummy *slur slur slur* yes? Ok? Ok? (till now I can't figure out what he is trying to tell me)

5) I want choo choo train. (When he says that, he actually wants to form a human train with me. Me in front and him at the back)

6) Mummy, 我的card哪里? (he’s asking for "his" ez-link card when he knows that we gonna take a train)

7) 我要kai kai (means he wants us to bring him out)

8) 我要 take MRT train

9) ohhhh bird fly already

10) I want make, 我要make.(he wants to assist in making his milk)

11) I want close, 我要close (he wants to close the door or cap his water bottle, his milk bottle etc)

12) Ohhh raining!!

13) Good night

14) Good morning

15) I love you

16) Darling, dear (he calls me those sometimes)

17) He'll say :"Mummy, see daddy.." while pointing to his dad. (he'll do that when he perceive that his dad is bullying him)

18) Mummy nice one! (when he sees a piece of clothing he thinks is nice)

19) 我要she she ( when he wants to pee)

20) I want to bath with daddy

21) 我要这个

22) Mummy see moon & Mummy see star (when he spotted moon and stars)

23) I want eat this, mummy please

24) Excuse me (he knows how to use this when he want us to make way for him and also when he burps)

25) Shit man! (yes.. he knows when to apply that..)

26) Mummy help me

Now for the grand FINALE - 救命啊!

Of course he’s been saying a lot more things, these are just part of the list. Ohhh I just heard him says : mummy 衣服破了.. (it's actually my blouse's arm hole, it's not torn)

Line Dancing Fun

2006-08-27T15:18:00.000+08:00

I brought Dec to see my granny last week and on our way back, we heard some Chinese oldies playing loudly at the open court and a whole group of aunties and uncles waving their arms and kicking their legs in tune to the music. They are doing line dancing.

Dec saw them and decided to join in the fun. He started to wave his arms along with them.

So I left him at the side of the court to dance and found a corner bench to sit and watch him. Not long after, he met another boy who acquired the same interest as him. Quite a cute sight to see both boys mimicking the elderly.

Maybe I should consider sending him to some dancing class in future. Definitely not ballet though! I find male ballet dancers such big sissies!! No offence, this is just how I feel.

My Little Loyal Guard

2006-08-15T14:06:00.000+08:00

The noti dad walked pass me and gave me a slap on the thigh while I was cuddling up with Declan. Having witness that, he gave his dad a killer stare and a fierce :"NO!" before lashing out at the dad with his hands.

He kept on shouting :" NO! NO! NO!" fiercely at his dad while trying to revenge me by slapping the dad. No amount of explanation by the dad can stop his fierce and protective act.

The sour dad then goes :" Next time got people protect you liao."

I feel so protected. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Little Happenings

2006-08-11T13:13:00.000+08:00

Black Chicken = Bird

During one of the weekends, when Dec's bad appetite played up and he refused the fish bee hoon which we ordered for him, I re-ordered a black chicken soup for him. He's a "soupy" boy. He'll refuse anything except soup.

As he was seeping his soup, I tried my luck in getting him to eat the meat too. I assumed that he'll reject it due to the color. Instead, he took one look at the black meat and swallowed it. He loves the meat! Yeah! Half way through eating, he pointed to the meat and say :"Mummy, Bird!!" ?????? You know what?? Apparently, he mistook the black chicken for the mynahs and crows he sees everyday on his way to school….. He loves watching those birds and now I know he loves "eating" them too….. *faintzzz*

Chinese phrases

Bil had been teaching him Chinese phrases such as "心静，自然凉". There was once he started off "吃软" and Declan spontaneously continued "不吃咸!" …… for those who don't understand the joke, the actual continuation should be "不吃硬"

Oh Shit

Once he ran out of the bathroom and knock himself on the cheek against the door jam and he goes :"Oh shit!" while rubbing his cheek….. I turn to his dad and ask if it was Jason who thought him that (as Bil loves to teach him funny phrases) and he sheepishly replied that he was the one who blurted those 2 words just awhile ago over something and Dec's radar somehow manage to pick it up……

Happy National Day!

2006-08-09T12:23:00.000+08:00

That is our national flag from the view of Declan. From this piece of "artwork", you can see that his creativity is very much in the "pte ltd" category...

Anyway Happy Birthday Singaporeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Nope, we are not going to watch the parade at stadium as I am sure my little itchy backside won't be able to sit still for that many hours and neither are we going somewhere to catch the fireworks as this little terror is afraid of fireworks. I love fireworks!! sigh.....

For those who are concern about his eyes, thank you so much, he's getting better and healing well :) puppy eyes will be back in no time!

Puppy eyes no more

2006-08-07T01:55:00.000+08:00

This pair of puppy eyes had since become puffy eyes.

He had been rubbing his eyes alot for the pass 2 days and I noticed yellowish discharge from his eyes too. He also whine alot about his eyes being painful and he tears often, thus we brought him to NUH Children Emergency to check his eyes out.

Doctor suspect eye infection and worries that the infection will spread to other areas such as *ahem* the brain..... According to the doctor, children's infection and virus are prone to being spread elsewhere and eyes are especially close to the brain. That worries me alot!!

They had given us an urgent appointment at the eye clininc tomorrow morning with 2 types of antibiotics and an eyedrop.

Hopefully, the puppy eyes will come back soon.

Development Growth Spurt?

2006-08-06T01:29:00.000+08:00

I think a rambutan fruit from his childcare must have dropped on his head and woke up "part of his idea". I observed quite substantial improvement in his intellect and speech these few weeks. It's either that or I've not been observant enough.

Breakfast Cutting Set

A lot of toys which were given him will normally end up being thrown around by him. I gave him a "Breakfast Cutting Set" much earlier this year, but he never really know or seem interested in learning how to play this toy. He prefers to throw all the items around. So, I kept it. I took it out recently again and viola! After a few demo by me, he did it right!

Not only is he cutting, he's adding more spice into play by pretending to feed me the food that he's cut. After I pretend to take a bite, he'll ask :"nice?" When I took over and pretended to feed him, he'll also pretend to take a bite and goes :" mmmmmm nice!"

Tricycle

Sil pass down her son's tricycle to Dec sometime last year. Since then, he's always been "waddling" or being pushed around on it. It's only about last week that he's learnt how to pedal. I guessed, it's most likely due to his short legs that delay him in learning how to pedal.

Building Blocks

When he first got in touch with building blocks in his school, he'll just pour the blocks out of the container and then put them back in before pouring them out again. Now he's learnt to put them together to form different shapes and combination and he will also use his imagination and tell me what he is building.

There was once, he linked the blocks together in one long chain, then he excitedly shouted to me :" Mummy see??? MRT Train!"

Role Playing

He seems to enjoy role playing. The figure he role play most is none other than me. Ain't it worrying?? See him trying on a pair of dainty heels at Charles and Keith?

After putting on the pair of heels, he dragged them a few steps before asking :" Nice?" *faintz*

What is this?

Whenever we bring him out, he'll point to whatever he can and ask us "what is this" along the route which we travel. I think this is our retribution. How we as parents love to ask them :" What is this??" ever so often! Now he is doing that to us. Nonetheless, as he asks and we answer, he learns. I don't really mind, but it's just that it can get quite tiring answering his long chains of "what is this?"

I need to brave myself for tougher times ahead, he's forming longer sentences now and he's also getting very "involved" in stating his preference on where to go, what to eat and what to wear.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

Parent Teacher Conference

2006-07-24T16:43:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday was the first time I attend Parent-Teacher Conference at Dec's childcare. This is a session whereby the teachers will update the parents on the development of the kids. Parents are also shown the works of the children.

Let me share with all what was observed of him by the child care teachers.

1) He always dozed off during assembly time hugging his blankie.

Explanation from the mum : This is because this little monkey always sleeps after 12mn. Anytime before that is quite impossible as the moment we off the bedroom lights, he'll start protesting and no amount of comforting can make him stop.

If we forced him to lie down on the bed, he'll spring up and slide of the bed the next momen...

2) He’s not picky when it comes to food.
????? from the mum : At home he is forever picky and he's always uttering one of these "我不要菜，我不要肉，我不要饭”

3) He's always the first to fall asleep and the last to wake up during nap time.

Explanation from the mum : It’s probably due to the explanation as mentioned in point 1. He usually sleeps after 12mn. At home on weekends, he’s usually the last to sleep and the first to wake up the next morning. The exact opposite…..

4) He’s better at interaction now. When he first joined, he played the observer role. Other todds play, he watched or played alone. Now he’ll initiate play with his classmates.

Observations from the mum : Agree, better at initiating. So much so that at playground, when he spots another kid, even those much older and especially girls, he’ll go close to them and start flashing his cheeky smile and attempt to make friends.

He’s also learnt his friends’ name as I often hear him utter : bye bye Zhi Zhi, bye bye Max, bye bye “Lyan” ( I think should be either Ryan or Bryan) while he’s playing with his toys.

5) He loves songs and music.
Observations from the mum : Agree, he started screaming “泥娃娃” non stop one night and he’s not stopped since. He’ll scream that a few times a day and that’s about all he knows out of the whole song.
Though he loves songs and music, he’s not as articulate as little Zara He can’t really catch the tune and lyrics yet except for “泥娃娃” and “little star”.

6) There are a lot of other things which he needs improvement on. E.g. the ability to express hunger, toilet training, hand eye coordination etc. Too many, I can’t really remember.

7) Teacher shared that he’s able to express his frustration by screaming when a fellow classmates snatched his toys. That I don’t dispute :p

8)I was also shown some of his artwork. Nothing fantastic, mostly assisted by the teachers. Coloring was haywire hahahahha. Anyway, I’m not gonna lost sleep over those as I believe he’ll pick those up at his own pace. The important thing is he enjoys the company of his little friends and teachers.

9) I was also shown a pic of him building blocks. I must say that he’s improved. Formerly when we gave him blocks, he’ll just throw them all around, now, he’s able to build upwards and sideways too. He’ll construct this long line of blocks and tell me :”Mummy see?? MRT!” *clap clap*

10) I’ve observed that he’s picked up mandarin from his centre. I’m happy about it.

I am looking forward to the next PTC to see how else he’s developing.

Wishy Washy Mornings

2006-07-20T09:12:00.000+08:00

Our morning routine of sending Dec to childcare had become real wishy washy. Nowadays, it's a great chore to get him changed into his uniform. Somehow, he dislikes changing out of his pajama top. There are days when we simply give up and dress him in "half uniform", which is just the pants.

He's getting choosy about his shoes. He'll dictate which pair of shoes he wants to wear. There was this particular week which I bought him a new pair of addidas shoes and he simply refused to wear any other pair except that new pair of shoes….. However, this situation is getting better, he's back to his sandals again…. Phew!

Bidding farewell was much easier then. Now, he sticks to me like super glue. I have to hold him while the teacher take his temperature and I always end up being the one feeding him the cod liver oil, rather than the teacher. After the temperature taking and cod liver oil routine, he'll know that it's time for mummy and daddy to take leave and go work. He'll transform himself to a koala bear and cling onto my shoulder and many a times, the teacher will have to peel him away from me. He won't always cry when the teacher do that. Most of the time, he'll show his upturn lips and we can see that he’s holding back his tears.

This morning, he decided to play boss in his centre. When we reached the centre, he decided to take his mum on a tour. He led me by my hand to see the rabbits munching on their breakfast. He went :" Mummy, see! Rabbits!" After which, he led me towards the little play house, opened the door and invited me in. He's playing host. I told him I got to go work, I'm running late. "No! Mummy come!" He kept trying to usher me into that little play house.

That's when the teacher came to my rescue. The teacher scooped him up and offered to bring him into the animal kingdom to stroke the rabbit. That's when I took the chance to slip away quietly, didn't dare to bid farewell, in case I got stuck again.

I wonder how it'll be tomorrow morning….

Twinkle twinkle little star..r..z...zzzz

2006-07-15T15:22:00.000+08:00

This little scenario was related to me by one of the childcare teacher.

A playgroup full of little todds is getting rowdy. The little ones somehow got over excited and started jumping up and down creating a big din. In an attempt to tame them, the teachers got the children to all lie down and look up at the ceiling and imagine that they are looking at the sky.

Teacher : "wahhh you see sky…, very nice…."

The little ones lay down and looked as guided by the teachers. The group started to sing songs like twinkle twinkle little star. To make the environment even more soothing, the teacher actually off the lights to simulate night time. Not too long after that all the kids got "cooled" down and was singing co-operatively. Time passed by fast and soon it was tea break time!

The teachers on the classroom lights and all the little ones sprung up, except for one little figure, who continued to lie down all curl up. The teacher went close to check and realized :"Oh!! Ah –Bee had fallen asleep!" hahahhaha that Ah-Bee was none other than my dear little boy. (Ah- Bee is how I addressed him and his teachers had since used this little nick to address him too.)

Seems like he got a little too comfy and doze off.

Family Day

2006-07-10T17:25:00.000+08:00

20 June was my office Family Day. Unfortunately, Kiat can't be there until near the end as he's got a volleyball match. Thus I have to bring the litte one on my own. Tough job! but quite fun. As I'm part of the organizing committee, I dressed the boy in a similar colour as the committee. Orange T heheheh.

He was a happy boy that day. Lots of freebies for him. He's got many balloons and ballon sculpting. Not forgetting the free flow of cotton candy and pop corn. For him his major activity for the whole day was eating, eating and eating. My friendly colleagues fed him well.

other than being busy eating, he's also busy feeding other ladies. Yes, just ladies.

The dad came right at the end of the event, when we are packing up...

It's was a long and tiring day. We arrived at 8.15a.m and left at 3+ p.m. It was intersting looking at how Dec socialise with other adults. He's alittle tense at first, ignoring most of the teasing from my colleagues. As the day went by, he started to warm up and played with the girls. This kind of event is a good break from the usual shopping trip or trips to tourist spots. Cheap and fun!

Off Pacifier!

2006-07-04T19:34:00.000+08:00

Once again, Declan has shown that he is no longer a little baby.

He's off his pacifier!! Ain't that great?! I'm happy. I still remembered the frustration within me on the day that Kiat's sister first push a pacifier into Declan's mouth despite the fact that I didn't want him to use one. I wonder how can someone be just so inconsiderate towards someone else's wishes. That's my kid ... HELLO??!! That aside. My fear of him being unable to give up the pacifier when he reaches schooling age has proven to be unfounded. His habit of sucking pacifier die a natural death.

There was this day his pacifier just went missing mysteriously (wonder whether he threw it out the window), we didn't have spare thus he had to go without it for that night and we were too busy to go get him one and he had to go without it for another night and then another night and another...........

It's been 3 weeks!!! Not a slightest fuss from him! He's officially off! Yeah!

2nd Birthday

2006-06-30T21:18:00.000+08:00

Declan's 2nd birthday was on 28 June, just 2 days ago.

Both of us took a day leave to bring him out for some quiet family time. I never like crowd nor noise, so this year, Kiat decided to do away with a family gathering type of celebration. Phew!!!

We started the day at about 9am. Breakfast was at Ya Kun's. When we walked past a "包店", that boy stopped at the shop front and started yakking at the auntie while pointing to the buns. I assumed he was trying to place his own breakfast order, so I bought him 2 "siew mai" before we went into Ya Kun to meet the dad.

This boy only took 2 bites of the "siew mai" and then his full attention went to his ice milo. His appetite is real bad of late. He rejects rice and porridge. He did wash down 2 mouthful of toast with his milo though

To him, Ice milo is still the best....

After breakfast, we took a long bus ride from Tiong Bahru to East Coast.

Dad and son played along the coast line while I sat on the beach to look after our belongings. The dad taught him to face the sea and shout his own name and he did. Very entertaining to see a little todd shouting his own name to the open sea, it's as if he is venting his frustration.

After awhile with the dad, he decided to pull the mum into the water. This heartless boy actually pushed me towards the wave while he ran up to take cover as the waves crashed in. arghhghhh! but ha!!! he ended up getting himself wet when he didn't run off in time! kekekeke.

After playing in the sea, we went cycling. This is the first time he's riding with Dad. We cycled to Bedok Jetty where he saw many uncles fishing and even witness one uncle who managed to pull in a 2 feet long fish! On the way we passed by some beautiful sand castles! Big ones!

On our return trip, the birthday boy actually fell asleep on the bike.

Our next destination was to Parkway Parade for lunch and a kiddie ride with Barney. We went to Fish & Co since he loves fish so much. He only ate a few fish nuggets.... bad appetite played up again...

Our final destination was home, on our way back, Kiat went to collect his cake. He ordered for Dec a Barney cake! Declan loves it, he kept looking at it and shouts:" Barney! Barney!"

Happy Birthday Declan!

Little Boss

2006-06-27T21:50:00.000+08:00

This little chap really knows how to behave like a little boss. See? At our stall, he has no qualms about grabbing a free bite. Don't he look as if he is tending the stall?

His dad was commenting that this boy is also as "hao lian" (proud) when he's sleeping. Look at him sleeping in his bossy pose.

2006-06-25T00:42:00.000+08:00

I'm a lousy mum!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was showing Dec some pictures of fishes online when in flew a flying cockroach and landed on my laptop screen!!

Guess what I did???? I abandon my child, ran out screaming to my mum in law to seek her help to catch that stupid roach. The next thing I heard was Declan's frigten cries. Mil rushed in and caught that irritating roach which was by now on a bolster right next to Declan. That insect must have flown there and maybe on it's way there it might have landed on Declan which frigtened him.

I screamed at my mil to bring the roach out and throw it away so that I can go in to comfort my boy. The poor boy was clearly shaken. I shouldn't have left him behind... I should have carried him and bring him out together.... What kinda mum will leave the child in the lurch when faced with such a situation?? A "chicken" mum! and that's me......

A trip to underwater world

2006-06-24T21:45:00.000+08:00

Late this afternoon, I received a SMS from Phoebe asking me what happened to Declan's blog. :p hahaha I guess, I've been slagging recently. It's been a week since I last update the blog. Pardon me. Here are the photos of our Underwater World trip which I said I'll post.

This is him in the Sentosa Bus on our way to Underwater World

At the entrance of the place, there is a "Touch Pool" where you can touch the fishes and other sea animals.

Loads of pictures of the little one looking intensely at the fishes.

The pink colour stuff are jellyfishes. Declan don't really like the gigantic fishes, he prefers the small little colourful ones. When the gigantic ones came too near, he'll turn away and say :" scared scared!!" and kept tapping on his own chest. ahhaha timid fellow.

More pics of him staring at the aquarium.

Let's see some photos of the colorful and beautiful aquarium

The following photos are taken when we tour the tunnel.

Our tickets actually entitled us to visit the dolphin lagoon too. Unfortunately, it was raining that day and thus we had to give the dolphin lagoon a miss... What a waste. We spent a little time after the visit to grab a bite. I am suppose to share a hotdog with the little one and ended up he took the sausage while I took the bread....

After eating the "separated" hotdog, we savoured on a bag of Famous Amos cookies which I brought along. yum yum!!

I enjoyed the day. I bet the little boy too. He gets to be up close and personal with his favorite fishes. In fact I don't mind another trip back again some time later.

3 generations of sick men

2006-06-15T18:31:00.000+08:00

All 3 generations of men in our household are sick. The baby is sick, the dad is sick, the grandpa is also sick....

Dec's fever went up to 38.9 degrees on Tuesday night. I was at work, by the time I reached home, this poor chap was already burning and his cheeks were flushed and he couldn't move about much except sit in the stroller and watched his grandma cook.

I rushed him down to NUH children's emergency and the nurse administered a "bullet" into his butt. The pill brought the temperature down very quickly. Within 15 mins, his temperature was down to 37+ degress and he was all active again.

He started on his mischevious endeavours. He saw a switch on the wall which resemebled a light switch. He mistook it as a light switch and started clicking it. By the time I realised, it was too late... it was actually an emergency call bell for patient to seek the nurses' help. He did it a few times and the nurse came running in a few times. :p

That's him in the fever isolation room.

He's lucky to get the room pasted with stickers of fishes all over. He loves fish.

After a 3 hours stay, he was sent home with the diagnosis of virus.... and a bill of $70..... ouch.......

Declan's Favorites

2006-06-12T11:48:00.000+08:00

Favorite Public Transport

1)MRT
2)Bus

He loves watching the MRT trains as well as the SBS buses. It's never difficult to keep him occupied if he's feeling bored. Just bring him downstairs and let him stand by the railings where he can watch the buses and taxis cruising by.

When we are out and if he ever catches sight of a MRT Train pulling pass, he'll go :"Mummy see!! "RT" "RT"!!" somehow he shortens the name to RT. These 2 public transport never fails to amuse him and of course, he enjoys riding in them and even playing with them.

I can't find a mini MRT train model, if not will buy him one.

He even have a little taxi!

Favorite Animals:

1)Fish
2)Bird

He LOVES fish. He's fascinated with them, be they dead or alive. He looks at the fishes his granny bought from the wet market, he stares at them when they are on TV, he refuses to barge when he pass by an aquarium. He likes eating them too!

We bought him a mini fishing set. See him fish!

More pics of him and his favorite fishes in my next post as I brought him to Underwater World yesterday!

Other than fishes, the other animal which he loves watching are the birds. He'll say "Bird bird fei liao le" (birds fly away in mandarin) when he sees them fly away.

Favorite Phrase :

1)Bye bye Decan (I didn't misspell the name, that's how he pronounces his own name)

I bet he caught this phrase in school during farewell time daily. Nowadays, as he rides his little tricycle at home, he'll go :"Bye bye Decan!" Quite a funny sight to see him bidding himself farewell.

Favorite Dessert :

1)Ice Cream

What else??!! Remember his grandpa gave him ice cream cone to go with his dinner?? Now, a few times a week, his grandpa will bring him downstairs and the moment they hit the mama store, he'll go to the ice cream boxes and ask for "ice ceam".

Passport Photo

2006-06-05T08:46:00.000+08:00

This is Dec's first ever passport size photo. My passport is due for renewal, thus, I thought I might as well add Dec into my passport, in case we wanted to bring him on some trips in future.

Taking a proper passport photo is not easy with a wriggly todd. I'm quite worried that he'll fall off the high stool thus I gotta stand near him and prepare to catch him if he did. His dad gotta play clown, standing beside the photographer, to make him smile and look straight.

A few shots were taken but most of them caught him with his eyes closed.... This is the only usable one. Not too bad but this little chap somehow look worned out in this pic.

2006-05-20T09:41:00.000+08:00

This is a backdated post as I was too lazy to download all the photos :p

Look at the pics, Declan went dating with little Phoebe at Changi Airport plus all 4 parents who knew better but to play gooseberry.

First they went for a stroll hand in hand. The both of them was so oblivious to our presence that instead of following where the 4 adults are heading to, the 2 little ones decided on their own to stroll into Starbucks coffee outlet.

After a long stroll from the MRT station to the airport's sky train station, all 6 of us boarded the sky train to go to terminal 1 viewing gallery where the 2 little ones stood together and went :"Aeroplane come!" whenever they spotted one landing.

After watching the aeroplane for awhile, I took out Dec's biscuits and see the little couple sharing the biscuits.

Let's do a comparison of the growth of the littles and the aging of the old ones. The 4 pics below shows the same 4 person about 1.5 years ago.

*sigh.....* time really flies....

Bad Eating Habits

2006-05-17T13:25:00.000+08:00

Who will give the kid an ice cream cone to go with his dinner?? It's none other than his grandpa... the best thing was the usually critical granny didn't tell him off and in fact she was trying to spur the boy on to finish the cone so that the ice cream won't drip onto the floor...............

This is definitely not gonna help his already very bad eating habits.......

How do you feel if you are the parents who witness this?

My Mother's Day Present

2006-05-15T18:31:00.000+08:00

Kiat gave me this to me yesterday.

I was wondering if I should wait till christmas before I open it since the wrapping paper was grazed by Dear Old Santa Claus.

Then again, since I had a perfect excuse to open it yesterday, since it was mother's day, I did. Guess what is in it?

A cool white iPod nano! That's something which is on his wish list. Anyway, since it was given to me I'll share it with him as I think he'll need it more than me because he travel more than I do.

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-13T23:12:00.000+08:00

In less than an hour's time, it will be Mother's Day of 2006. I remembered I was wondering aloud to my colleague a few days back about when will I finally get a little pressie from Declan for Mother's Day.

I got it on Thursday! Look!

A heart-shaped paper lolli with his pic. He didn't present it personally to me. I got to find this pressie in a very "unromantic" manner. I was checking his bag for his childcare communication book to see if there's any update when I saw this thing sitting in the bag.

I knew that it was definitely not him who did this. It must had been mass produced by the childcare teachers. The photo did't look glam at all. It seems like he got snapped right after he woke up from his nap. Nevertheless it was heartwarming :) and also very thoughtful of the childcare centre to help the little ones prepare the pressie. It's got a little magnetic strip at the back to allow me to stick it on my work station. I'll find a nice and cosy corner for it on Monday when I'm back in office :)

Oh I just figured out that the little red stuff surrounding his pic were his thumbprints.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mummies out there!

Declan and his drumstick

2006-05-07T23:24:00.000+08:00

This boy has grown to become very picky when it comes to food. Rice, cooked at home, he'll take a few spoonfuls and start running about in the room refusing to eat. Rice, especially fried rice serve at Crystal Jade, he'll dig in like a mini excavator.... A kid with an expensive taste!

I always feel my heart lifts whenever I see this little picky eater takes an interest in a certain food. He don't usually eat alot of meat as he is a lazy "chewer". However I have to change that perception when the meat "involve" is a chicken drumstick. A spring chicken drumstick, to be exact.

Unhealthy as it might be, but I don't really care, so long as he eats.

Toilet Training Surprise

2006-05-04T23:01:00.000+08:00

This boy suddenly decided that he wanted to be "toilet trained" this evening.

It all started with me realising that he was without his diaper when I smacked him on the butt for being naughty. The grandma said that he took the liberty to decide to go diaperless that evening. Fearing that he would wet his pants, I brought the potty to him and "shhhhheeeee" and "shhhhhheeeeeeee" and "shhhhhheeeee" trying to make him pee. He simply stood there and kept shaking his head. I took that as a sign that he's not urgent and kept the potty. He walked a few steps and then urinated on the kitchen floor...........

After he wet himself, I tried explaining to him that if he needs to let go, he should tell me and I would bring the potty to him. After explaining, I brought the potty out again and "sssshhhhhhheeeee" him again. This time he did pee a small amount! I praised him and gave him a muak on the cheek.

After this little accomplishment, for the next 30-45mins, he actually told us he wanted to "ng ng" and the grandma would then fetch out the potty for him to pee. In that short span, he actually peed 3 times. I think he got the kick out of our praises.............. The last time he said "ng ng" he even went to the kitchen to bring the potty out on his own and peed right in.

Afraid that he'll peed himself dry just for the seek of praises, I put on a diaper for him and anyway it's near bed time. Let's see if the enthusiam could sustain till tomorrow's evening or not. Oh by the way, I just realise our potty is leaking....... gotta replace one.

Result of Child Bearing Ultimatum

2006-05-02T13:21:00.000+08:00

Phoebe, I felt your nudge. Actually it's not me who needed the nudge. It's the man. As I've expected, I forsee that he will forget about the whole thing and also as expected, when reminded, he'll claim that he didn't forget and he intend to reply me.

Anyway I've got no intention to remind him but my dear friend Jessie, decided to take the liberty to remind him during one of our gathering on Saturday 28 April.

So here's the result : I'll go for my studies.

Need I say more?

T2 add on

2006-04-25T08:03:00.000+08:00

arghhhhhhhhhh just another item to add on to the last post.

This morning Master Lim refuse to co-operate.I thought I had an appointment at 8am in the office (turn out I remembered wrongly and it should be 830am...) and his dad was limping due to overexercising so we decided to all fetch a cab to our destinations together. We'll drop Master Lim at childcare before dropping the dad along AYE and then me at the hospital. Everyone must leave the house at around 7.20-25am in order to be on time.

This little chap wakes up in the morning and decided he wants to throw tantrum and make life hell for me. He refused to get change, refuse to drink his milk and simply wants to lie down and whine.

7.30a.m we are still at home and we only managed to change his diaper and his pants and his milk is still in his hand, untouched. Adding on to those he's crying and crying just because I pulled out his pacifier trying to coax him to drink the milk.

Arghhhhhhhhhhh finally I can't take it anymore, since the grandma is already awoken due to the saga, I left him with her, picked up my bag and walk out of the door. So, no childcare for him today!. We stay on the fifth level and when I reached ground floor, I can still hear his thunderous wails. TERROR!

T2

2006-04-24T08:24:00.000+08:00

T=Terminator? Nahhh, close though! T= Terrible!

Declan will turn two in 2 months time and he's start displaying signs and traits of the "Terrible Two".... His symptoms are as below:

1) Acting as my echo. I've started to notice that he's echoing some of the common terms and actions which I used on him.

Example 1

As an anxious parent, I am always telling him "No" once too often and if I have to repeat that, I'll cringe my nose and try to look stern. Guess what??? He's doing the same thing to us! Whenever he lay hands on my things, I'll tell him nicely that he's not suppose to touch that and request him to return it to me. Initially, he'll co-operate, nowadays he'll go "No!" and cringe his nose at me... Instead of getting mad, I'll end up laughing and laughing.... What kind of parent am I???? *sigh....*

Example 2

During play, sometimes, he'll get a little too rough and inflict some pain on me. This childish mother will then pretend to cry and then peep under my eyelids to see if he notice. Again, I did that once too often and now it's retribution time. On and off, when he doesn't get the things he wants, he'll do the same thing for me to see. Pretend to cry, without tears and mucus and then peep under his eyelids to see if I notice. The only extra thing was the cheeky grin which he fails to hide.

2) Throwing stuffs out of the window. I didn't really notice when he picked up this habit and from who... His mum is an obedient and co-operative citizen who don't litter and yet I've caught him throwing his biscuits and scraps of paper out the window. There was once he attempted to throw his pacifier out and fortunately I stopped him in time. Hmmmm now that I've mentioned that, I suspect that he may have succeeded in "getting rid" of one of his pacifier as one of them went missing mysteriously.

3) Everyday, either me or the dad will have to half coax half drag him into the room and make him sleep. He’s into doing the same thing to me right now... He'll pull me by the hand to the mattress and make me lie down with him and goes :"Sleep" I should be happy right?? I'm not! Cos he do that at 7-8p.m in the evening... Too early for bed... and if I attempt to sneak away to watch TV, he'll be mad and chase after me and pull me back to lie down on the mattress again...

4) He'll sometimes kick up a big fuss when we want to bath him, dress him or slap on a diaper for him.

5) When we bring him out, he will just dash around and pull things off the shelves. I can no longer shop in peace. We'll get so exhausted chasing after him that we almost always end up empty handed and have to rely on a cab to send us back.

6) When traveling in a cab, he'll wreak havoc in the cab. He'll try to open the door, refuse to sit on the seat or attempt to disturb the cabbie. I won't be surprise if one fine day the whole family gets thrown out of the cab.

7) He'll throw his water bottle, milk bottle, cups on the floor for no apparent reason. He's since broke 2 water bottles and a milk bottle cap.

8) He'll ride his tricycle over his blanket or mattress and when we remove the blanket or mattress, as usual, he'll cry.

The list is not exhaustive. I really hope he'll get over this phase soon and learn to co-operate with us more. Having said the above, I am not saying I give him to all the time. Usually I won't give in except for when he asks me to lie beside him and sleep.

Another Sun Filled Trip

2006-04-17T09:26:00.000+08:00

The dad loves the beach and the sun. He'll grab any available chance to fly down to sentosa whenever there is a free weekend. Unfortunately most of our weekends are occupied with either work or piles of errands to run. 2 weeks back, he managed to grab another chance to pack us all to Sentosa again. Below are just some pics of Dec playing the little cool dude with the dad's and my sunglasses.

They now have this water play thingy. Kids simply love it, however it's advisable for them to play with parents supervision as the timber floor was covered with a thin layer of algae and thus it's slippery.

Time to go home and he's still acting cool!

Child Bearing Ultimatum

2006-03-29T15:54:00.000+08:00

The dad is an indecisive fellow. Throw him a question and he wil happily adopt an open ended deadline to get back to me. At times I can wait till the cow comes home and still don't get an answer. This time, the "hot" question is :"Do you want a second child?" As usual, his answer was :" Let me think about it and get back to you."

I waited and I waited and I waited. It has been about 2 weeks and apparently he is still thinking as I didn't get an answer. Thus, today, I gave him the ultimatum. I laid out all my plans for him clearly on the table (literally) like a nice cold dish platter. I wanted an answer by 1 week time but the dad wanted me to stretch the timeline to 1 month. Ok fine! He'll have 1 month. The plans I shared with him are as follow :

1) Yes for a 2nd child

We'll then try in Sept 2006 and hopefully we can pop one by 2007. This also means I have to shelf all further studies and travelling plans due to the lack of resources in terms of money, time and energy.

2) No to a 2nd child

I'll then save up and go for my further studies. I intend to pick up child psychology and hopefully + wishfully I will be able to pull through all the necessary stages and get myself certified as a child psychologist and get the kick out of people addressing me Dr Seah. wahahhahaa. Dream only lah ok, it's just a dream. Nevertheless, I dare to dream. The more I dream the nearer I'll get to it right????

My personal preference is to have them both. Unfortunately I know that it is not quite possible. Thus, my ultimate route will very much depend on the dad's decision. The answer will be out in end April.

huh?? Again???

2006-03-29T09:10:00.000+08:00

Declan is down with fever AGAIN!!!! Yesterday evening, he measures 38.5 degrees, however he was still as active as ever. I fed him medication and the fever went down. Phew!

This morning, when Kiat measured him, he was 39 degrees... HOW HOW HOW???? I'm real panicky! With the news reporting that HFMD cases are shooting up real fast and a childcare centre at Jurong had to close down due to HFMD how can I don't panic?? He's just recovered from HFMD, I really hope that he don't get it again this time.....

Deja Vu

2006-03-23T08:25:00.000+08:00

Cute hor? My friend delivered this little bundle on 20 March and I went to visit her yesterday.

As she was describing to me her birth process via phone on the day of delivery, the memory of me wandering around the delivery ward waiting for the contractions to come in came into my mind vividly. Both of us delivered at Mt A, thus as she described, I could clearly see the delivery suite and the layout of the bed and equipments right before my eyes. DEJA VU! I really can't believe that it's nearly 2 years since that exciting day took place.

For those who've not seen my multply site in the earlier days, here's how I look on the day of delivery.

What's even more deja vu was when I realised that the nurse who was attending to my friend was the exact same nurse who was looking after me then. She was the one who helped me relieved my bladder when I had a swollen urine tract and couldn't pass urine on my own. Then she was just a junior nurse. Now, she's already a staff nurse.

I can't help but pick the little bundle up when I lay eyes upon her. So chubby, so red! Just like how Declan was, when he was a newborn. This was how Declan looked when he was a newborn.

Don't you think there's resemblence in the below 2 pics??

He was 3.65kg then and she is now 3.49kg. Pretty close.

Holding her in my arms made me had an urge to have a second one. The memory of my pregnancy and delivery was a pleasant one. Now, if the dad agree, I will probably try for a second one at the last quarter of this year and if the dad don't agree I may just jolly well stay at 1 as I can't imagining myself chasing after a toddler (or 2 if we kanna twins) in my mid 30s...

Back to Child Care

2006-03-22T09:53:00.000+08:00

He's back in childcare since yesterday. I expected him to wail when we handed him over to the teacher after resting at home for about 10+ days. He didn't. He was cool and calm and I'm real glad about it.

Prior to his return to childcare, the centre actually sent a rep to visit him at home and they even bought him a pressie. The centre gave him a little toy train and a pack of mini milo drinks. The pressie even came with a little greeting card which his teachers penned down their well wishings. Need I say more about their great services and their care for the little ones at their centre? I doubt so.

See how this boy is enjoying his milo drink.

Despite my hope to keep HFMD confine to just him, I was informed that 2 other little ones went down. Fortunately, they are also considered mild cases and one even recovered faster than Declan and was back at the centre before him. Thus now the record is 3 cases in that centre. Let's hope it'll just stop at 3.

1, 2, 3

2006-03-17T10:48:00.000+08:00

Declan : neh neh neh neh!

off went dad to make a bottle of milk for him. Instead of drinking his milk, this boy held the bottle and started rolling all over the bed and of course spilling the milk.

Me : Declan, you better lie down and drink your milk at the count of three ok?! 1..., 2... (and before I can proceed to the next number)

Declan : TWEE!!! hahahah!

........................... -_-"

Until last night then I realise he had learnt to count to three...... When you start counting at 1, he'll know how to go on to 2 and three. However, I think if I place 3 apples in front of him and ask him :" How many apples?" I don't think he knows how to relate numbers to objects yet.

HFMD Update

2006-03-14T19:49:00.000+08:00

He is well on his way to recovery. It was fortunate that he does not have many ulcers in his mouth. Fluid and food intake is not an issue at all. phew! He still gets to enjoy the ice cream and cold soya bean milk which we already bought though. He's a happy todd! No child care, no need to wake up early and a few tea spoon of ice cream twice a day. The only thing which he needs to endure was the itch on the rashes for the first 2 days and of course the confinement at home.

I will think that, most folks will shy away from him since HFMD is contagious. However, it's not so. Our neighbour right opposite (they are actually kiat's uncle and cousins)don't seems to mind his condition, probably it's because his rashes isn't that bad after all. They still invite him over to their place, still come to our door to say hello to him and even attempted to hug and kiss him. I sweat as I watch them do this. I always wonder do they really know he's got HFMD???

Another hero is the grandpa, he still dare share his food with him despite my repeated warnings.... He'll go :" Never mind, it won't spread.." *shrugs*

HFMD

2006-03-10T09:18:00.000+08:00

sigh... I guess you all will have guessd from reading the title what I am going to lament about....

Yes... I dread to share that my boy is down with HFMD.... Though the Mt A doctor put him as a suspected case but looking at all his tell tale signs, I think the doctor can safely classify him as a confirm case.

He started with fever on Wednesday night. Thursday night, the fever still hovers at 38.5 degrees... I also noticed little red spots surrounding his lips, tiny spots are also showing up on his legs and palms. I am not too sure whether there are ulcers in the mouth as he refused to let us check. What I do notice is that he will keep his saliva in his mouth and he looks like a hamster with a loot of hidden food in his cheek.

I am glad that he's still active and lively. He's a little clingy though. I've got to coax him back to sleep this morning before taking a cab to work. He wanted us to hug him to sleep.

This will probably mean he'll have to stay at home for the next 2 weeks... I am now really concern about the rest of the little tots in his playgroup. I have communicated with the centre and have also offered to help them with the disinfecting of the place. Let's hope that it's just confine to him and let the rest of the little ones be spared from this dreadful disease...

Custody of child

2006-03-08T14:40:00.000+08:00

CY: "If I am a woman, I will definitely not want the custody of the child should I be getting a divorce."

Read more here

Declan's Potraits

2006-03-05T20:34:00.000+08:00

Ok here comes the long owed potraits. Ignored the quality of the resolution if you can. The lazy me just can't summon up enough energy to scan the photos.. so I took the easy and lazy way out. I simply snap the pages of the album with my handphone camera and uploaded the photos. Thus, what you are going to see, is not the true reflection of the actual quality of the photos. So here you go!

We've yet put up the montage big potrait. When we get it up, I'll snap a pic and post it again.

The package has since been raised to 900+. Frankly, I believe there are better packages out there.

Childcare Updates

2006-03-03T09:14:00.000+08:00

This boy no longer cries when we hand him over to the teachers. He will even automatically lean towards them during the morning "handover". I must say he's pretty well love at his centre and the centre's owner was describing how they were playing peek a boo with him yesterday and he was trying real hard not to laugh but ended up bursting in laughter. The teachers have been really patient and loving towards him. That really takes a great load of my mind. I'm not paranoid when I'm at work ,worry over whether he will be abused or bullied.

You guys have not seen him in his uniform right? Let me show you some pic. I think buying him the uniforms does help him to gel better with his classmates. By wearing the same thing, at least he won't stick out like a sore thumb.