Me and My Sisters

Me and My Sisters

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Easter in Ipoh

We went back to Ipoh to celebrate Easter with Gong Gong and Poh Poh this year. It was my 3rd time going to Church, after Christmas & Feast of the Holy Family last year. Yes, I didn't get to go often because Mommy couldn't handle both of us alone. So normally during the important occasions, Daddy would come along so we get to go as a whole family. I behaved very well, not like Jie Jie who kept making noises and asking food from the other kids' parents. We're in the Cry Room, so whatever noises we made, it won't be heard from the outside and disturb the rest of the people. Poh Poh was out there with the choir, so Jie Jie kept insisting to go out and find her. Luckily Mommy managed to keep things under control.

Later, after Mass, Poh Poh gave Jie Jie some Easter Bunnies. Here's how it looked like.
Guess what's it made of? Yes, chocolate!

She finished everything without sharing with me! But can't blame her though, Mommy said I couldn't take it yet.

After that, we went to Canning Garden for breakfast. We had some yummy Chee Cheong Fun. Maybe I should say they. I didn't get to eat any....

Most of the time, we just spent the day at home with Poh Poh and Gong Gong, before heading for lunch at one of the restaurants (I forgot what name already) and then went back to Penang.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

1 More Month to 1

How time flies. My little baby is going to be 1 year old soon. These shots were taken on 18th April, when she's exactly 11 months old.


Weight: ~8kg (she was 8.1kg taken on 1st May - yes, this is a backdated post).

Teeth: 7 in total (4 at the top, 3 at the bottom). The bottom right lateral incisor was out, but not the left one.
New Food: Organic Mixed Grain Cereal (which consists of brown rice, barley and oats), plum, fish, grapes, buckwheat, Marie biscuit, avocado, taufufah, organic red rice...

Feeding:
- She refused the bottle when I was around. She would screamed when I tried to bottle-feed her, and would only quiet down when I said, "Ok, Mommy would give you Mommy's nen nen". She seemed to understand me even though I haven't done anything to show what I was intending to do.

- She could drink from the straw, even though she had a tendency to choke at first. Before that, I've also introduced her to sippy cup. She didn't quite master that, but was getting better at it now.


Motor Development:
- Showing inclination to feed herself (when I’m trying to feed her, she would want to hold the spoon herself and direct it into her mouth).
- When we said “Pai Pai Shou", she would clap her hands and smiled, moving her body excitedly.
- She would dance when she heard music (started rocking her body in tune with the music).
- Could wave bye bye when we asked her too, or when she heard people said the word bye bye.
- Able to do Friend Kiss, but she would just put her palm to her mouth and kiss it, no flying kiss yet :)
- Could stand unsupported for a long time.
- Started to take baby steps (very short, but she’s so afraid of falling that she preferred to crawl instead). She could walk to us, but she wanted us to hold her hands.

New Words:
- Jie Jie (A Che Che)
- Hi
- Her favourite word this time was Papa, she's been going Pa pa pa pa all days round.

Others:
- She would now look at the direction of aeroplanes and understand what was that when she heard the sound (just right after I published the post last month about this)
- Could recognize bird, butterfly, teether, water, etc (she would look or point at that direction when we asked her about it)
- She wouldn’t sit still in the baby chair anymore, but kept wanting to climb out of it. It’s harder to feed her nowadays.

- Screamed herself out when Jie Jie tried to snatch her toys away, or when any of us took away the things that she was trying to get her hands on. She would remember that particular thing and wouldn't stop crying even though we tried to compensate it with other things.
- Started to show a tendency to read books, she loved to flip thru the pages and didn’t eat them anymore.
- She loved to smile, unlike her Jie Jie when she was small last time. Many people couldn't resist playing or smiling at her when we met them in the lift, etc.. including strangers.
- When she crawled, she had a tendency to shake her body left & right, or moved her head sideways. It was such a cute scene.
- She started to show great interest in remote controls and phone. She would go to the phone and put it on her ear as if listening to it. As for the remote control, she always fight to get it, don't know why.
- She loves to bite. No, not only things, but also people. My babysitter told me that she would go to her unopened rice sack and bite on it. Exactly like a mouse. And she would bite my shoulder, hand, tummy, etc. Sometimes when she started to bite me, it's also an indication that she wants milk. And when I was nursing her, she would bite me after she's full. Normally, she'll follow with a giggle as if enjoying my reaction (I would scream and scold her, of course). Unlike her Jie Jie, who seemed to understand better. Sze Yi won't do it anymore when I scolded her, or only do it playfully to tease me, but not so painful. But this Sze Juin wouldn't listen, in fact she would bite me more if I continued to offer her another side.
- She won't ask for milk when she's hungry. But I could sense it when she's crawling towards me, or just wanting me to carry her, or when she started to bite (normally only when she's in a bad mood). On normal days, she would wait patiently until I nursed her. If I forgot that her feeding time was near, she wouldn't cry too. She would be contented as long as I was carrying her. This was so contrary to Sze Yi, would wouldn't wait for her milk to be prepared. But I remembered Sze Yi would direct me to the room and then tugged at my shirt when she wanted milk last time. Just at what age, I couldn't really remember.
- She understand the word Ta (beat in Mandarin). I guess she learnt it from my babysitter, because when she's naughty, my babysitter would said "Ta" and beat her hands together. So now, whenever she heard us say the word Ta to Jie Jie, she would beat her hands together, as if imitating the babysitter's beating her hands together's action.
- I also noticed that she didn't really suck her finger anymore, or less frequent. Yes, my baby's growing up now.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dotted Lines

Last few days, Hubby and I was teaching Sze Yi how to write K. It was her homework for that day. She was lazy and didn't want to write. She relied too dependantly on the dotted lines for help. We tried to make her write it on her own, but she kept saying, "I don't know."

Then suddenly, she looked at Daddy's face at very close proximity and exclaimed, "Hey, Daddy, why your face got dotted lines also?". She pointed to the dried pimples marks on his face.

I couldn't contain my laughter upon hearing that. However, Daddy maintained a calm expression and proceeded to guide her with the K.

The next day, hubby said, "Maybe I need a facial too. To get rid of all those dotted lines".

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Kinder Bear

Mommy and Daddy enrolled me in a music school early this year. I called it Kinder Bear. Why? Because we need to bring this cute little bear bear along. Not only that, we also need to bring a doggy of our own there. Not a real one, though. As our lessons progressed, our teacher asked us to bring a red car too. My, I wonder if my bag would be able to fit them all if we need to bring more things next time.
Me & My Doggy

We were given the book with a bear and a CD which has all the songs being taught. I loved listening to the CD at home and also in Daddy's car.

Well, it's just a 45-minutes lesson, and I went there with Mommy and Daddy. Sometimes, when no one can take care of Mei Mei, we took her along too! And she could even dance to the songs as well. Everytime she's in a bad mood or going to start crying, we'll sing, "Hi Everybody, clap your hands", and that would switch her mood instantly. She would start smiling and clapping her hand to the tempo! Ah, but she would want to snatch my little instruments too, like my triangle, rhythm stick, clarinet, etc... Sometimes she's very brave and even went up to the teacher's box where she kept all the goodies! Mommy and Daddy need to carry her away in betweens so as not to disrupt the whole class :)



Actually Mommy and Daddy enrolled me in this class because my Cousin Sarah also joined this class. Before that, they have enquired from other music centre, but when we learned that Sarah was in this class, we joined her too. Initially I was scared, didn't want to participate. Everything also wanted Mommy to go with me (like getting and returning the instruments to the teacher, etc). Cousin Sarah had been very nice, she often volunteered to accompany me there and hold my hands so that I won't be so scared.

Me & Cousin Sarah

I think I took nearly 4 lessons to warm up and be brave. Overall, this class helped me to be more open and expressive. By now, I was back to my self and was very naughty. Even the teacher commented that when I just came, I was very timid. But now, I was so naughty that I actually climbed up her head!


More pics from the fun that I had...

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

A Farewell to Remember

After about 8 months at FingerTips, I finally made a heavy decision to move Sze Yi to a nearer school. I have been very happy with the way they took care of her there, but the only drawback was the distance. It's actually out of the way from my route to work everyday, and it's more than double the distance from my house to my workplace. So why did we choose it in the first place? Well, it's rather near to my MIL's place, but still it was not within walking distance so we still had to fetch her ourselves. Actually it was highly recommended by a friend of hubby, and I've also received very good feedback from others. After checking it out ourselves, I loved the system there immediately. We also noticed that Sze Yi felt so much at home instantly. So that's why we went there.

But as time went by, I was always late for work in the mornings. Not to mention that my lunch time was also very rushed, and I could hardly schedule for any lunch appointments with my friends. I've tried switching her to full day instead, but it turned out worse because after office hour that area was especially jam. A 15 minutes drive (one way) could easily turned out to be an hour's journey. And we had to leave work very early, or else we'll be fined if we're over the allowable time to pick her up. We've experienced reaching there to find that everyone had gone back, and our poor girl was waiting outside with her teacher for us.

In the end, I decided to go for distance and convenience as my top priority. Hubby was reluctant to switch at first, saying that we should not choose a school based on our own convenience, rather the quality instead. But I maintained that I'll find one with equivalent quality but nearer, since I was the one chauffeuring her nearly everyday, with Hubby as my backup. Despite all that, I myself was in a mixed of emotions as well because I was afraid how my decision would affect Sze Yi. How would she adapt to a new environment? Furthermore, she had the chance to experience gardening, outings, baking, and etc in her current school. She brought back Murukku on Deepavali, dressed up for their Halloween party, and they actually observed all the festivals by doing something special.

In between hesitations, I finally found a suitable school for Sze Yi (I hoped), which was rather near to my house, although it was not directly in my route to work as well. But my travelling time had been slashed by more than half, which was the main reason anyway. I decided to give it a try. The school was newly set up, and I signed her up when I heard about it. It was a little more pricy than the first one, but I guessed that's a way to purchase convenience without sacrificing the quality. Furthermore, her previous principal was very understanding, and she told us that we could always go back if we still wanted to.

Well, to appreciate the teachers and everyone at FingerTips for making it such a nice place to learn & play for Sze Yi, I decided to have a small farewell for Sze Yi. I found it rather awkward to order a cake, because it was not a birthday celebration. So, in the end, I decided to bake something for them. I got the recipe from Pei Sze, and decided to go for this because it looked quite easy. Furthermore, it's suitable for kids. However, I couldn't get a self-raising flour, so I bought the normal one. Luckily Pei Sze had been very kind to give me some baking soda so I could still continue baking without needing to go hunting for that particular flour. I made a little modification to the recipe by adding some vanilla & banana essence, also for every 100g of flour I added in 4g of baking powder to make a self-raising flour.

It was not easy as I thought. Luckily I had my MIL with me this time, unlike my previous attempt with the otak-otak. We had to bake 3 rounds to finally get the amount we wanted to feed the whole school. The first and second rounds, I was doing halfway before MIL had to take over because Sze Juin wanted me. Sze Yi was very enthusiastic in helping during the first round.

But not the second. And during the third round, I got to do it by myself (Sze Yi wanted to help again this time) since Sze Juin finally had a nap. Phew! We took the whole afternoon and evening to get this...

This was actually from the first batch. Since we left it in the oven without taking it out, it was rather brown. But it tasted good! And this was from the subsequent batches...
For the 2nd batch, we added some mini cupcakes version for the smaller kids. It turned out to be very crispy and we all loved it! Here were some snaps of them all (big & small) in the making...


And finally when they were all packed nicely...

I also included a little card but I forgot to take a picture of that. It was handmade as well (not by myself, although I had initially wanted to make one myself with Sze Yi's help, but we just didn't had time to slot that in).

Farewell FingerTips, thanks for everything and Sze Yi sure had a great time there!

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