While Jie Jie was Doing Homework...

Jie Jie just left to sharpen her color pencils...

And when she came back, Mei Mei was still busy....

sorting things out!

All Eat and No Rules Make Me a Happy Toddler

Today, I was exempted from a lot of 'forbiddens'. Why? Coz I was allowed to eat cold stuffs like ice-cream and cold peach which was just taken out from the refrigerator (although I've tried cheese cake and cold mango last Sunday). That's not all, I even got the chance to eat outside food like tofu. But what I enjoyed the most is this....

Eating the sushi rice with my fingers!

Er, actually, Mommy gave me my teething biscuit, but I didn't want it. Not when I can eat all these. So I threw it away, leaving Mommy no choice.

We dined out today, at Mommy's favourite (as Jie Jie called it. Don't know why, whenever she saw the sushi conveyor belt, she'll say that's Mommy's favourite). I had a field of time. I'm sure you'd say so when you see the pics! Why? Coz I'm oblivious to everything, except eat, eat, and eat...

Everyone was looking at the came except me... until when I realised it's over!

Daddy, Amah and Jie Jie enjoying their meals.

Naughty Jie Jie had switched place with Amah to be at the conveyor belt, and she kept taking the food that came. Despite being scolded by Mommy and Amah, she's still unpertubed, until she was threathened to be left there to wash the dishes if Daddy didn't have enough money to pay later!

As for me, I was busy wiping the table. Need to clean up my mess, if not I might ended up washing the dishes with Jie Jie...

Before they finished their meals (I had finished mine), I grew restless so Mommy took me for a walk. Looks like I still couldn't really let go, I wanted to hold Mommy's hands. Even though I could manage a few steps already, I still felt comfortable holding her hand instead of on my own. But not when I had something to check out...

Well, after they served desert, we made a move. We had too, it's closing time. We were here very late, coz Daddy was stuck at work.

The walk back

On the way to the car park, we saw our favaourites! Jie Jie and I were both very excited, we played for awhile there. This time, even Jie Jie was ok not having coins or tokens with the rides!

Then, it's time to go home. But that's not all. You'll know why :)

A Pressie and a Cake

Last night, I was home rather late. When I reached home, I was greeted by this...





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too bad I didn't manage to get any photos. But, Sze Yi was holding a little pressent made out of her bricks, wishing me, "Happy Birthday Mommy! Here's your present".

Then, after I came out of the shower, she showed me another of her creation - a cake with a very tall candle. She said Mommy is 1 year old, so just need 1 candle. Then, later she went to draw something on her doodle pro and showed me 10 balloons - it seems Mommy had suddenly upgraded to 10 year old! LOL!

What about Sze Juin? She was clapping away after her Jie Jie finished singing the birthday song.

Let's Go Kai Kai

Last Saturday, I was allowed to walk outside the first time, instead of being carried by Mommy or Daddy.

But after awhile, I got tired and just sat on the floor! Ended up Mommy had to carry me.

The next day (which was Father's Day), I got to play in the playground at our condo. Mommy let me play with the slides for the first time (ah, but actually Daddy had let me tried them without Mommy knowing it). No wonder everytime when we passed the slides, I'd point to the slides excitedly, but Mommy always said, "wait till you can walk first". So finally, yesterday I got to walk on the field, play with the slides, climb up the steps, look at the fish, etc... on my own! I was so thrilled! Initially, I just couldn't slide down. Mommy wriggled me a little, pushed my buttock down a bit until I could slide. After a few times, I did it on my own - wriggled down a bit until I could slide down on my own! I spent about 1 hour at the garden there. In between, Mommy took me for a marathon ride (she ran while pushing my little tricycle). It was fun! Both of us got to exercise too.

Maybe we should do that more often next time. You know what? Both Daddy and Jie Jie (and Amah too) was sound asleep at home while we're having this work out on our own. Hmmm... if not I doubt I would get such quality time with Mommy :) Too bad no photos to share, though.

My Daddy My Hero

Anyone could be a father,
But not anybody can be a Daddy.

Daddy,

You gave me confidence I never knew I had,
and mould me into what I am today,
Thank You Daddy,
For being a friend and my pillar of strength!

Happy Father's Day!

To my Daddy with Love... specially hand-made by me!

And this is from Mommy...

Her first attempt at cheese cake - introducing the Cheesy Mango Delight!

Sze Juin's 13 Months Update

Weight: 8.8kg
Height: 70.4cm
Teeth: 8 in total (4 at the top, 4 at the bottom)

Feeding:

- At the babysitter's, she took porridge on Mon, Wednesday, Friday while cereal with EBM/water on Tuesday & Thursday. We came to this schedule after she couldn't poo poo everyday when she's on porridge everyday last time. So she had 3 milk intake (still at ~4oz) on the days she had porridge, while 4 times on the days she had cereal. With this arrangement, she'll poo poo about once every 2 days on average.

- She would now request for milk by tugging at my blouse, said Nen Nen and tried to pull my blouse up.

- The way she drinks milk while I was breastfeeding her was a rare case - she's no longer in the cradle position now. Instead, she drinks while sitting, squatting or standing! If I am lying down breastfeeding her, she would be on top of me, instead of lying beside me. She only stays in the lying position when she's really sleepy or when drinking in the middle of the night. Otherwise, she'll climb on top of me and prefers to drink that way!

- She can drink milk from the bottle on her own. Recently I was having rashes at night, so MIL didn't want me to feed her directly. Instead, she asked me to feed her my frozen supply. So I tried to bottle feed her, she drank in the beginning, but after awhile, she pushed the bottle away. I tried this several times until she's really angry and kept pushing the bottle away. Then hubby tried to let her hold the bottle on her own, and guessed what? She finished drinking the milk while lying on hubby's tummy!

New Food:

Dragon fruit, cake (with walnut inside), choc cake, her birthday cake, Gong Gong’s homegrown apple custard, bread, black bukit rice, 3-fruits cereal, soya, egg (egg yolk and also egg white), scotts emulsion, kim gin hua, red beans, durian, mangosteen, rambutan, etc.

Motor Skills:
- She could squat and stand on her own

- She can climb up to the sofa, chair, table, etc...

- She can now WALK :)

- She can jump! (though she hardly lift her legs, just her buttock). Well, maybe I should put it as she understand the word jump :)

Vocabulary:

- Mommy, Daddy, nen nen, mum mum - the frequently spoken ones this month

- She also speak some 1-syllable words, but I couldn't recall now.

Others:

- She now wanted to play the Kok Kok Beh (rides) when she sees one. Luckily, she's still contented even if we don't put any money or token inside, she would be happy just sitting in it.

- She loves balloons and would ask for one when she sees them in the shopping complex.

- She would put her hands to her chest and showed 怕怕 when we said want to beat her.

- I'm starting her on cloth diapers this week, at night. She's still on lampin during daytime when she's at the babysitter. Only during the weekends and at night, she's on disposable diapers.

- She wouldn't want to go to bed at night if there are still people outside. The only way to make her go into the bedroom is to ask everyone else to go to sleep (including Daddy and Jie Jie) and switch off the lights. Only then she'll be contented.

- She would beat her head if she's angry or didn't get what she wanted. Sometimes, she'll pull her hair too! At first, I was worried if she's annemia, but the paed assured me that she's not (judging from the way she cried during her MMR jab recently).

- She knows how to show "No No" sign - she called me and pointed to the potty and then started to shake her pointer left and right as if saying, "No No, cannot play with the potty".

- She's getting more difficult to control when in the car. She didn't want to sit on my lap, nor the car seat. Instead, she wanted to sit on her own just like her Jie Jie, without anybody holding her at all!

The Awakening Fall

It's amazing how things took a turn of event. Yesterday, Sze Juin had a fall. It's not the first fall, but it's a first from the bed, and the worst so far. I was a few steps away, adjusting the air-conditioner. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, with Daddy sleeping on one side, and Jie Jie at the other. All of a sudden, she just got up and starting walking - towards the edge of the bed. I was shocked and quickly ran to her, calling her name but she wouldn't stop. Faster and further away from me. Then she went right down to the other side of the bed - her head went down first. A loud cry followed just right after that. That cry woke Daddy up immediately. I quickly ran to the other side of the bed and soothed her. It was a great relief to find that there's no bump on her head, or any sign of blood on her teeth. Really, no words could describe how relief I felt.

At night, I was still searching her, anxiously looking for any signs or bumps. Then I felt a slight bump on her forehead. I quickly put the cold compress and ice against forehead. Luckily it didn't turn blue black or got worse. Things went as normal, she's not even scared when I put her at the same location after that. Gladly, I silently thanked God.

And guess what awaits me tonight when I reached home? Yes, she's walking!

I've waited for her to walk before she turned 1 (coz her Jie Jie actually walked long before she turned 1), but it never happened. Well, not exactly. She's been walking on the bed and sofa, but not on the floor. I guessed she's afraid she'll fall. But tonight, she walked steadily towards me, smiling triumphantly with each step.

Guessed the fall last night made her realised that it's not that painful afterall if she falls down :)

Sze Yi's 3.5 Year Updates

Sze Yi with her many expressions while eating the strawberry

It's been a while since I last updated Sze Yi's progress. In fact, I think I only wrote about it once. It's hard to keep track, as she's now 3.5 year old already. But I'll try to keep a record here for her reference later.

Height: ~97cm

Weight: 14.9kg

Teeth:
20 full milk teeth, no fillings yet (she's been to a dental checkup just this morning, the dentist said it's great! But she didn't dare sit on the chair, the dentist had to check her teeth with Daddy carrying her!)


Feeding:
- She could now eat on her own.
- She has been introduced to a variety of food, including fast food and junk food (sweets, etc.). She is no longer allergic to eggs now (she used to last time).
- She still drinks a lot of milk, at least 3 times a day, normally more than that. I have been mixing breastmilk into her formula when Sze Juin was born, until my gynae told me that it could cause dehydration if the composition is not correct. Ever since then, I slowly trained her to take purely breastmilk since I have excess. Intially, she didn't want. But now, she took (I've been making a lot of changes to the way I stored my milk. Initially I gave her fresh ones, and slowly changed that to frozen milk). When I have more supply, I actually breastfeed both of them fully, which lasted for a few months - maybe close to half a year, I can't really remember. Now, she's 1-2 times on breastmilk - about 5oz each time. If formula, she'll take 7oz.
- She loves to eat medicine, especially paracetamol. Even if she's not sick, she would say that she's sick and need to eat paracetamol. So, it's not really hard to feed her medicine when she's sick :)


Motor Skills:
- Able to ride bicycle and manouvre it quite well
- She could dance really well, remembering all the steps and follow the tempo correctly
- Can run really fast now and climb things with narrow steps (just like a sticks, no base at all) on her own.


Vocabulary:
- I couldn't keep track of her vocabulary as it's grown really fast in such a short time. But I still remembered how touched I was when I first heard her say:
i. Good job Mommy -> when she's ~26 months
ii. I love you Mommy -> when she's around ~27 months
iii. Good night, Mommy. Sweet dream. I love you -> just recently (as how I normally said to her)
- She could sing a lot of songs by now. Her recently learnt ones include Red River Valley, 好妈妈 (not sure the exact name of this song, but she kept singing this when Mother's Day was approaching last month), 三字经 (she could memorize up to the 2nd paragraph, beating me coz I'm still at the 1st paragraph), etc. She also could recite poems like 1,2,3,4,5, Once I caught a fish alive, Hey, Diddle Diddle, etc..

- She's very good in memorizing. Before she started reading, she could memorize the whole book (which I couldn't even remember what would come next, but she could). She had memorized more than 2 books:-
i. Numbers -> when she was ~29 months
ii. Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? -> when she's around 31 months
iii. Peter & Jane series -> when she's at FingerTips

- She even taught Sze Juin how to read when she was just born, but now that she started to recognise the letters, I could see that she couldn't really remember what would come next but need to read first - yes, on the same book which she'd memorized last time.

- She could now read storybooks. In fact, she showed very great interest in reading nowadays. But she could read and read the same book again and again, without feeling bored. Besides P&J series which was her favourite (I didn't even know FingerTips started her on that, I only realized it when I took her to the bookstore and showed this series to hubby - she started reading the whole book much to our surprises!). She could read up to Level 5 on her own now. I suspect that she's still partially memorizing them, although no doubt she could recognise and spell more words now.

- She could memorize our telephone numbers, spell her name and a few other words.

- The only thing that worry me now is that her speech is not clear. For K sounds, it'll come out as F. Example, Cry Cry, become Fai Fai. But I couldn't comprehend why she could pronounce Car perfectly well. She also couldn't really pronounce Rrrr (Sze Juin is much better than her in this!). But she could speak and understand English, Mandarin and Hokkien.


Others:
- She was fully potty trained when she was 2 year plus. Occasionally, she would wet the bed when she didn't feel secured, especially after we've scolded her. But overall, she could adapt really well in public toilets and also outside if we can't find a public toilet.
- She was weaned off the pacifier when she was 38months. ~2 months later, she also doesn't rely to her boh boh (pillow) to sleep already.
- Her writings - very much improved after she changed school. But, I think it's still not so nice :) She had mastered the numbers rather well (1-10), but the alphabets she still need the dotted lines to guide her. She's improving now, but still not very nice when she writes on her own.
- Colouring skills - acceptable, but still not very neat yet.
- Puzzles - she can piece them up for the easy ones. Those that are more complicated, she'll need help.
- Bricks - she's very into building bricks now. She'll build chair, tall tall buildings, potty, table, etc. - She could play on her own now, wouldn't need full attention from us anymore.
- It's hard to believe her at times, because her imagination will run wild. Some of the things that she said, it's not always true, although it's partially true. She loves to 'tembak' if she didn't know the answer. Maybe that's why there are variations to her stories.
- She could wear her clothes (which includes blouse, pants, socks, shoes) on her own, although she still need help on the more difficult ones.
- She could brush her teeth on her own, although she wouldn't want to do it alone normally.
- She's starting to learn how to bathe on her own. She started to slowly let others (except me!) to wash her hair the normal way. I still have to use the baby way with her.
- She's not so afraid of playing in the pool now. At least when we suggested to go for a swim, she happily agreed.
- She could understand logic rather well - she would request that I go back first that day so that we could all sit in daddy's car tomorrow (our car parks were back to back instead of side by side), looking at Daddy's shoes to tell if he's home already (especially after she followed me to fetch Sze Juin from the babysitter, and when she returned home she still can't see Daddy's working shoes, so she'll know that Daddy's not back yet), looking at the lifts display to see which lift would reach us first, etc.
- She's a great sister. She took great care of Sze Juin. Honestly, when she's smaller, I was afraid to leave them alone. Now, I could ask her to take care of Mei Mei while I do some houseworks. She won't let her sister eat things she shouldn't (even though she herself fed her cocoa crunch when Sze Juin was ~5 months old!).
- She's great with manners - Please, Thank You, You're welcome, I'm sorry, May I?, Excuse Me, etc.
- She's rather cho lor - she loves to shout very loudly and acts like a boy, climb high and low, and play rough.
- She cries easily nowadays especially if she didn't get her way (last time, she hardly cried even if in pain like after a jab).
- She is brave enough to see the doctor now, no more crying and would co-operate with him.

That's all that I could remember for now. My little girl is definitely growing up!

Cameron - Here We Come Again!

I have a 2-week break - it's holiday time! The first week, I went to stay in Amah's house for a few days. Then, during the 3-day break for Mommy and Daddy (it's Agong's birthday replacement) so we went back to Poh Poh and Gong Gong's house. Yi Ma came back too that week.

Since it's so hot, we went to Cameron Highlands again. This time, we didn't stay, unlike last time.

It's so crowded this time, due to the holiday season. Lots of traffic jam, we didn't get to go to a lot of places. Most of the time, we're stuck on the road. Our first stop - we wanted to pluck the strawberries, but since there's no big ones, we didn't went in. Instead, we had our favourite Kok Kok Beh rides! Only mine could move, Mei Mei's couldn't. She's satisfied sitting on it without any tokens. I was not that easy to fool :)

Then, we went to the Pasar Tani to get some vegetables and farm products.

We even tried the sea coconut there, but it didn't taste as good as we thought. Anyway, that was an experience, coz we've never had one. It's not as juicy as we expected in the first place.

After that, we went back to the charcoal steamboat that we had the first time. It was so good and cheap that we went back again. The sign said - organic steamboat. Wow, so healthy! This time, we remembered to take some photos (that was before the food was served). After it was served, we're too busy eating and everyone forgot the camera. While eating, a man came to ask us if we wanted to try the durian. We tried one, it's rather expensive, but it's worth every penny. Really nice!
After lunch, we figured that we could only go to one more place before heading home. Yi Ma would need to go back to KL that very day. Since it's so jam, we decided to go back to the strawberry farm near EQ. However, to our disappointment, it's closed. No strawberry picking for that day, but we're allowed to go in and have a look.

Me & Yi Ma

Strawberry farm - closed for the day

We ended up buying and eating strawberry there. See how I was savouring the taste?

Yi Ma helped us take a family photo

Finally, before we headed home... Bye bye Cameron!

Amah's Birthday

On Amah's' birthday, we had dinner at Foong Wei, Amah's favourite restaurant. Daddy had booked a room in advance, and Amah had ordered the dishes of her choices.

I got the seat of honour - just beside the birthday lady.

Oops.. I changed place again, coz I wanted Mommy to feed me.

More photos to follow.... me with my antics.

Daddy with Amah and Sze Juin

Our family photo...

Daddy wanted to take a picture with everyone in...

Singing of birthday song and Amah cutting her birthday cake -

it's Haagan Daz strawberry ice-cream cake!

We've made Amah's day, that's for sure! Happy Birthday Amah!