Me and My Sisters

The Great British Circus

2016-02-12T19:00:00.000+08:00

During the 2nd day of CNY, we went to watch The Great British Circus as they were in town.

A friend managed to help us get a 20% discount with our bookings, so we went for the VIP seat. We collected the tickets before we went for dinner, as it will be cancelled if collection was not made 45 minutes before the show.

We had a quick dinner at the food court in Aeon Big itself. We're surprised to see so many familiar heritage wall paintings inside there, it seems like we're back in Penang! Can you see the paintings lining up the walls around the mall's ground floor?

We only took a few pictures as we're in a hurry or we'll be late for the circus.

Little Penang in Ipoh?

After dinner, we went down to meet some friends at the circus entrance since we collected the tickets for them too. Good thing that they have already queued up so we're the first few in line. Since it's free seating, we got the first row!

Yao and the girls enjoying some homemade healthy snacks from my friend :)

While waiting for the show to begin, Yao got restless and told me that she's afraid. You see, it's quite dark in the tent, albeit some lightings and air-conditioning to make it more homey. I tried to soothe her but she insisted that she wanted to go back. In the end, I took her out and showed her the posters while explaining to her about the clown, acrobats, etc.

When it's showtime, I managed to persuade Yao to go back in and she got curious. I must thank the clown for the humourous start.

Then Yao got mesmerized by the challenging balancing act...

Until Spiderman made an entrance thru the smoke... Yao got scared again.

Spiderman

But she still wanted to peep at Spidey while crying at the same time, LOL! Thank goodness after a while, she calmed down and able to enjoy the rest of the show. The performances were interlaced with funny acts from the clown, so this kept her entertained. Mr Clown also invited the audience to take part in some instances, which made the show more humourous (well, if I'm in their shoes, I might think otherwise!).

Are the animals real?

At break time, Sze Yi wanted to have a picture with Spider Man and the bear, so we all went for a group photo. Yao naturally got scared but after some coaxing, she agreed to pose.

We had to pay RM10 for this, but we got a hardcopy photo in return. They were also willing to help us take a picture with our own camera, so it's a good deal.

Sze Yi even managed to get a picture with the clown!

We had another pose while waiting for the show to resume...

The next shows that followed were quite suspenseful, as the acts were quite dangerous. We watched in awe especially the performance by the 3 motorbike riders in a cage.

More dangerous stunts to follow...

The show ended with a parade from the performers carrying the flags from both countries and the state where this show was performed.

The End

After everyone left, we went backstage as Sze Yi was busy looking for the caravans. She has read in Mr Galiano's Circus that the circus people stayed in a caravan, so she wanted to check them out. However, we can't find anything apart from these....

So I told her now we're in a modern world. The circus people no longer stays in a caravan, but a hotel instead ;)

And Yao went back with a big smile, she kept saying, "Mr Funny is so funny... hahaha!"

Celebrating Ang Pow Festival in School

2016-02-11T12:48:00.001+08:00

This year, Sze Yi performed the Hip Hop style Street Dance during their school CNY Ang Pow festival. It's a new experience for her, and she enjoyed it very much.

They just formed the team 1 month in advance, and practice session started just 3 weeks prior to the actual performance. Despite that, the kids performed very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJqXYHgAgMY&feature=youtu.be

Immortals

Sze Juin didn't want to miss the fun too so she formed her own group and managed to find enough people to make a team 1 week later. Even though they only have 2 weeks to practise, they gave a superb performance as well.

https://youtu.be/97eNb2qBigg

Uptown Funk

Yao's 24th Month Turning Point

2015-11-30T14:10:00.000+08:00

It was not long ago that I just did a milestone comparison for Yao with regards to her Jie Jies' at 22 months. Little did I know that once she touched the 24th month, she has continued to amaze me.

When she celebrated her 2nd birthday, I am very proud to announce that Yao could do the following:

We had a celebration for her 2 days before the actual day

1. Recite A-Z on her own (with a little guidance from us). I must thank my babysitter for teaching her that :)

2. Potty trained during the day time. She can go diaperless even when we went outside for lunch/dinner, and stay dry after a 3 hours nap. However, there are accidents still.

3. She has weaned off the pacifier! Hurray! Yes, she threw it away into the dustbin herself 7 days prior to her birthday :)

This was 3 days before her birthday, during the mooncake festival

(As you can see, she's Frozen-crazy)

Once entering the 24th month, her development was too fast until I couldn't keep track. From 24th month onwards to just before entering into her 26th month's timeframe, she could do the following now:

1. Recognise her ABC and able to tell the alphabets correctly

2. Can count 1-10 in 3 languages, English, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia (again, thanks to my babysitter for introducing that to her).

3. What amazes me the most is that she is able to recognise the numbers correctly too (when I pointed to the numbers in the lift, she could say it out correctly in English).

4. She can recognise the colours and say them correctly as well.

5. Yao also started to show interest in the shape sorter and she can put the shapes correctly now. She can even tell the shapes in names (eg circle, oval, etc).

6. She started to show interest in reading and looking at picture books. She can place the stickers nicely on the sticker book albeit still not really within the confined perimeter of the picture yet.

7. She can sing alongside with her Jie Jie on some songs like xiao chao (小草), wo niu de jia (蜗牛的家), Lullaby, etc. Some of her favourite songs (which she still can't really sing in full yet) are the Humpty Dumpty, Mary Have A Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars, etc.

8. I can now declare that Yao is fully potty trained, including the night time. Her diaper is dry even in the morning (oh but accidents do happen at times still).

9. Yao speaks quite fluently and clearly in both English and Mandarin. However some words are still not clear yet and only I can understand her. She could relate and describe things in sentences quite well. I love some phrases which I don't know where she picked up from..."But I don't know how!", "What the hell!", "Where's Daddy?", "Or Daddy go where?", etc.

10. Yao is very emotional, she can cry easily. She will cry when we sang songs which sounded sad to her, like "Lullaby or Dodoi Sayang", or the Xiao Bai Chuan (小白船) song. Sometimes I'm not sure if her tears are fake or not, because whenever her Jie Jies wanted to make her cry, they will start singing lullaby to her and she will start crying for them (she's such a good actress!).

I am still breastfeeding her, but started to introduce Pediasure formula milk (in bottle) as well as warmed up FarmHouse/FarmFresh fresh milk (in cup) for her in her 21st month. By 23rd month, she was taking the Pediasure formula milk more frequently especially at night when she realised I don't have much milk left. But she was on full EBM at the babysitter's house still. When my last frozen EBM bottle was used up right before she turned 26th month, I gave my babysitter 2 bottles of EBM plus 1 serving of Pediasure every day starting on the 30th Nov, where Yao is officially 26th month.

My last frozen EBM (top) and last sets of complete EBM to my babysitter (on 27th Nov)

I normally gave her 5oz EBM per bottle, but since my supply was running low and it took so much time to pump out the required amount to make a bottle, I use shortcut and stopped at 4oz instead. It really takes a lot of effort to squeeze out 1oz at this stage.

This photo was taken on 4th Oct. Yao basically can drink from the cup without spilling and able to feed herself without much mess by then.

I started to let Yao take cold stuffs (including fresh milk, vitagen, yakult, ice-cream) when she's 23 months old but it's not that frequent. The first time she sampled a cold drink was when she was 20th month at the Balik Pulau Goat Farm, for the goat milk was chilled.

17th Oct 2015 - Yao went for her 1st dental checkup. She only can sit for awhile on the dentist chair before insisting to get up, so the dentist checked her teeth with me carrying her. She has been diligently brushing her teeth everyday (yes by herself, and I checked after she's done) so there's no problem with her teeth (yet).

My little baby is growing up real fast, and it's a joy to watch her everyday, even though she's too mobile for my preference. Anyway, both her Jie Jies adore her, and they have been great babysitters at home, especially when I'm busy with other chores.

And for that, I am grateful for my little blessings :)

Yao's 22-Months Milestone Check

2015-07-29T22:57:00.000+08:00

It's the time of the year again. My little baby is turning 22-months and I'm dreading to write her "accomplishment report" because I know I've not been doing a good job.

Why do I pick 22? Well, just because I wrote one for SY when she's 22-months and after that I did a comparison for SJ when she reached the same milestone. So now that Yao is 22-months old, I felt compelled to do one for her as well. But oh, just briefly skimming thru her Jie Jies' reports, I can't help feeling a little despair because Yao still couldn't do some of what her Jie Jies could do last time (mostly academic stuffs). Both sisters could already count, but she still needs guidance to do a complete 10. Sigh... I must take full responsibility for this because I have not been paying her the same amount of attention as to her Jie Jies last time... Hmm...but could that also be attributed to Yao's more mobile nature, because she's so much more faster than her sisters when it comes to walking, running, and whatever stunts that's physical.

My little monkey doing one of her stunts again

Her statistics are very close to her sisters (10.4kg, ~82cm) compared to SY (11kg, 84-85cm) and SJ (~11kg, 79cm). We forgot to get her height measured when we went to see the Paed so I get Daddy to measure her with our own measuring tape.

I think she's got a full set of teeth too, just like her Jie Jies.

What she can do (which either one or both sisters can do at 22months last time):
- Able to feed herself. She could manage it rather well, though at times when she spilled the food, she would inform me so I would clean up the mess.

- She could take out her own shoes, and diapers (not pants yet).

- She loves scribbling, have used all pencil colours, pens and marker pens. Even though we gave her a piece of white paper for her own use, she would sometime try to scribble on her Jie Jies' books or notebooks.

- She is able to recognise different types of fruits and animals, and could point them out accordingly. She also knows her body parts and could even say them out very clearly.

- I have not given her ice-water yet, but she could take spicy food, much to my amazement. I found out when she asked for the hokkien mee that Daddy was taking. He gave her some of the noodles which she tried and then asked for more.

- She hasn't been listening to a lot of songs. The very limited action songs that I taught her, she did show some actions at various parts. Her most favourite one is the Ring a Ring o' Roses which her sisters taught her, and she loved the fall down part the most.

- Friendly towards strangers, greeted hello to them, and waved bye bye when leaving as if long-time friends.

- She is very helpful and proactive with housework. Last time she would just pass me the wet clothes to be hanged, but now she would insist to carry all the wet laundry to the sofa for hanging, and does not just stop there. She would ask me to pass her the hanger and the clothes peg, so I have to help her put the clothes onto the hanger, and then carry her up so that she could hang it on the railings too. This really slowed down my work a lot, but then there's no stopping her. She is also the official messenger to pass things to her Jie Jie, like when SJ need to get a towel after her bath, or carry fruits from me to her sisters. Daddy and Jie Jies even assign her to throw rubbish for them, and she did it proudly and happily :)

- She is at the age where she just doesn't want to do things our way. Right now, she would resist strongly when I wanted to change her nappy or clothes. She also refused to eat her porridge. When I insist, it would end up with a tug of war, with me being the loser most of the time. She's really strong and doesn't really care if she hurt herself. If I'm not careful, she would have flung herself onto the floor or knocked against something. What's worse is that she could sulk for very long, and no amount of cajoling would comfort her. But at times, she would quickly say sorry and patted me after a struggle :)

- Loves brushing and would ask for her toothbrush when she sees it. However, she bit on the bristles most of the time. I've started applying toothpaste for her once (the MAM edible version), and ever since then, she always asks for it even though I try not to give her too often because she kinds of swallows it!

- She started to show interests in books after she turns 18 months when I brought back loads of board books from Big Bad Wolf, and could even identify and point to the objects in there and tell me what interest her. There's this book (Dear Zoo) which I bought from the Book Depository that I find very good. She loves to lift up the flap to identify each animals and she could tell one from the other. It's also sturdy enough because so far, only 1 of the flaps was partially torn (judging from the force that she used when flipping them).

- Recognising people - When she sees our old photos, she would point to SJ or SY when small and said that's Yao. She could recognise Daddy, Mommy, Jie Jie, Amah, Poh Poh and Gong Gong. She could address nearly all the formalities too by now, from Daddy, Mommy, Jie Jie, Amah, Gong Gong, Po Po, Ji Chik, Sa Chik, Ji Chim, Sa Chim. I think she's still not familiar with Jiu Jiu and Yi Yi because we seldom meet up. She would address the babysitter as Mommy too, and her husband as Daddy even though we tried to correct her a few times. In the end, the babysitter told me that even though she corrected her to call her Aunty, she still insisted to call her Mommy same like her other kids. I guess she doesn't want double standard :)

What she still needs help (but both sisters doesn't):
- Counting: She can count but not the complete 1-10. I know she knows when she auto-count for us, for instance when I asked her to repeat after me when I said 1, 2, 3, she would continue on like 4, and then when I said 5, she would said 6 instead of repeating the same thing. However, it's so difficult to get her to count, because she just refused and ignored me most of the time. Oh, but then Hubby told me he's surprised when he heard her counting 1-10 in Chinese! I never heard that myself, and could never get her to repeat it for me, so that's why I still place her counting under this category.

- Shape sorting: She could only do circle, and need help with the rest. Maybe we bought a rather complicated shape sorter for her when she's 1 year old (yes, we lost Jie Jie's one, which I think is a better choice). This shape sorter has quite similar shapes to begin with, and it's squarish where she has to turn it to different sides for different shapes. I think this is a little hard for her age (lesson learnt for Mommy for being over-ambitious). Her sisters' one was round in shapes, and the shapes are very distinct, like circle, square, star, oval, etc. Yao's one has a semi-circle, then a half-moon-like and oval shape, which I think very closely resemble each other. But then, Yao still can't really put the rectangle, etc all by herself, maybe because she needs to flip to 6 surfaces to find which holes to put it thru. Everytime she played with it, she would just do the circle and then she's stuck.

- She is potty-trainable, and has even showed diaperless record of close to 24 hours. There are many instances when I thought she's potty trained for good, but not long later, accidents happened. Indeed, she's not consistent. At times, she's eager to go to the potty. Then there are times when she refused to tell us. Her babysitter just told me that she's been diaperless for 3 days at her place, but that was during waking hours. She still wears it when sleeping, and it's not dry when she woke up ;()

- I didn't notice her memorizing any songs yet, but then I've not been playing songs for her. I noticed that when her favourite songs of "Let It Go" was going to be played, and she would quickly go to her position to start doing the 'action'. She is a good echo singer, and has powerful voice. Hubby enjoys dueting with her, because she really can sing the last part really well with him. Their favourites is the 小草.

What she is still learning (where one of her sisters already know):
- Like SJ, she still couldn't recognize alphabets yet. Even though her babysitter told me that she could already read, like A for Apple, B for book, etc., I think what the babysitter meant was more like she knows A is for Apple, B is for book. I haven't been doing that with her myself, but I don't think she could recognise the alphabets yet (unlike Sze Yi who could differentiate them at such an early age).

- Identifying colors - this is something that she's yet to master. At times I thought she could identify blue, green and yellow, but she doesn't show consistency yet.

- Doing the sign of cross - she is trainable, can do with guidance but still can't do it by herself.

- DO, RE, MI - she doesn't have a clue what is that! When I tried to teach her (after I learnt that this is one of the appraisal items), she just looks at me with a blur look and refused to participate! (LOL)

- Operating the DVD player - yes, she can operate partially. Better than SJ but not as expert as SY. She knows which button to press for PLAY and STOP but she couldn't change the CD like SY and and operate from scratch.

- Like SJ, she has been to the cinemas about 5 times. But unlike SJ, she couldn't sit still till the movie ends (maybe I didn't feed her pop-corn. SJ could stay in all the time because she was busy with the pop-corns). From all the movies that we have watched so far, she only stayed in for the Minions movie. For the rest of the movies, she would ask me to bring her out during the most important scenes! But I'm still happy because I could still follow the storylines despite so many interruptions.

- Her pronunciation is not that accurate and she tends to only say the last word. But she could get her message across by pulling and pointing. She could say a phrase by now, and her favourite is "Yao loves XXX". We play a game with her, and when she says "Yao loves Daddy!", Daddy will say Yay! When she says "Yao loves Jie Jie", they would say Yay! and the same for me. Over time, Yao would shorten the phrase to "Yao, Daddy! by eating out the "loves".

How she is different from her sisters:
- She can go up the whole flight of stairs like her Jie Jies, but she's much braver than them because she also can come down all by herself. In fact, that's her favourite past time, and she refused to even let Mommy hold her hands!

- She is very very 'ai sui' like her sisters, but I think none of my girls have dared to wear like this outside except at home, but she did! She has gone out shopping with a halloween hat (till all eyes were on us, and I can't help noticing a lot of smiles too), then this princess tiara :)

- If I'm going to rate her stubbornness, I'll give her 9/10. She's very sure of herself, and does not have fear in her dictionary. When going outside, she would not walk with us, refused to let us hold her hands, and would stay behind for such a long time until we all ran out of patience. Even when we're in the lift, with the whole crowd of people waiting inside, she would still take her own sweet time smiling back, but never wanting to get in. I would have to always go out and grab her myself. This including when we're going into the house, she would wander off to the other directions. If I hide and didn't show myself, or pretend to go in and close the gate, she would still stand at her spot, until I go back to find her.

- She's so much more mobile than her Jie Jies. She could run much faster than my fast walking pace! Climbing and walking are her favourite pastimes. If SJ refused to walk and always wanted me to carry her last time, Yao would struggle to come down and walk by herself. She could even attempt to play her Jie Jie's scooter and is rather natural with her footings. When it comes to racing with her Jie Jies, she was not that far off behind them, as she really can speed!

- Because of her mobile nature, she couldn't sit still in church or functions. I couldn't really bring her to church or shopping or attend any function by myself like during SJ's time. As for SY, I could still handle her even though she talks a lot, but Yao really tests my patience by walking just too much!

- She could go up and down the escalators already! Good thing she lets me hold her hands.

- She's a food lover! She would ask for everything that she sees us eating, so it's rather hard to confine her to her own food after a while. I just gave her organic foods initially, but because of this, I find it rather hard to restrict her diet. She would eat what her Jie Jies eat, and even refused her own porridge or noodles if Jie Jie didn't eat the same thing! I am still having a hard time feeding her the main meals, as she took ages to chew! But if it's outside food, then the process seems so much easier.

- Nap time - it's hard to get her to nap when we're at home (like during the weekends). I wonder where she got all the energy from. During bedtime, she's the last to doze off. I would have to wait until both Jie Jies have fallen asleep before I could make her sleep.

- She is very independent and understand a lot of things by now. She is not as clingy to me as her Jie Jies. I could go out rather openly without her crying for me (provided the Jie Jies are left at home too). Last time, I would have to sneak out during SY or SJ's time. She could even go to sleep without me at times.

- I have a feeling that she nurses more for hunger than for comfort. Maybe she has a pacifier that she could rely on. Once she's full, she even refused the other side. And when she found out that I don't have much milk, she would quickly unlatch and ask me for other types of food, or fresh milk or formula milk. I think she's ready to wean off (once I'm ready myself). She's flexible to take warmed fresh milk (FarmHouse) in cup, or formula milk (Pediasure) in bottle.

- Yao is an animal lover. She enjoys watching birds, fish, cats and dogs. We can see that she appreciates our trips to the zoo much better than her Jie Jies. She even dares to touch Jojo, which is Ji Chek's pet dog. Unlike her Jie Jies, she could play and chase after Jojo, and even let Jojo licks her hands.

- She doesn't mind water splashing into her eyes, or doesn't scream as much as Sze Yi when I wash her hair. She enjoys playing with water very much.

Indeed, every child is different. However, after having 3 kids, I couldn't help realising that parents' role is really important in helping their kids to accomplish more at such a young age. Most of the time, it is because we didn't give them enough focus. SY seems to know so much at this age, because being the firstborn, she has all our attentions. When it comes to SJ, our attention were split into two, but still more than Yao because SY and SJ's gap are less compared to Yao's with her Jie Jies. We are too busy with the Jie Jies' activities now and thus hardly have time to develop Yao. Furthermore, their activities and development are very different by large compared to Yao. But luckily, we have them as our helper, so the younger ones will pick up things from their sisters instead. Sometimes I'm amazed at how fast they learn things which I didn't teach them myself, because they observe from their siblings and imitate them. Like SJ, she learns to speak much faster and more fluently than SY, where as Yao learns to walk much faster than both Jie Jies. I guess she gets excited when she sees them racing and wants to join in the fun too.

Creative Toys Ideas for an Active Toddler

2015-06-26T21:40:00.000+08:00

Yao is at the age where she just wouldn't sit still. So it takes up a lot of my energy and time entertaining her. I was looking for alternatives to keep her occupied without the television. A friend shared some toys ideas and I find them very creative. I have tried some of them, not all works for my super active toddler but I would like to document them here.

Non-cook playdough with natural colouring (April 2015):

At first I tried the non-cook version, but Yao got curious and tasted it. So ever since then, I opted for the cooked version. If store in air-tight container, it should be able to last for about 1 year.

The red colour is from beetroot, recipe from here

Stickers made from felt (May/June 2015):

I was researching for suitable stickers for ~1 year old plus toddler, but noticed that Yao is still not ready for it. So a friend suggested that I make one from felt instead. However, Yao is not interested in it, only SJ enjoyed playing with them so far.

Face parts stickers

Shapes stickers

Kumon Lets Sticker and Paste(May/June 2015):
It took awhile for Yao to learn how to peel out the stickers and pasted them accordingly. She tended to paste them on top of each other instead of spreading them out. But over time, she learnt how to paste the stickers at the allocated boxes, even though not exactly inside. She still needed help with peeling the sticker as it will tear. She finished the sticker part in just 2 days, so I kept the book for sometime before introducing her to the 2nd part, which needs to apply glue and paste it herself. I should probably take a picture of her work, but till then, you can refer to here on how it looks like inside.

Taken on one of the nights she refused to sleep!

Colour sorter using pom pom balls (June 2015):

This is considered a hit so far. Yao can play and play with it for a longer period of time without getting bored. Initially, she adhered to the color code. But after a while, she refused to follow. She only likes to insert the pom pom balls into the holes. I love it in the sense that the balls won't fall out by itself, so it reduces the chance of losing the balls when I'm not watching her play. Even both Jie Jies also enjoy playing with this game.

Stacking Tower(June 2015):
This is something that Yao designed on her own. I have no idea where she got the idea. She even put away those containers herself after playing with it!

See how tall the tower can go up to? :)

How to Tell Them Apart

2015-05-17T12:00:00.000+08:00

Looking at these pictures, can you tell them apart? All these were taken when they were around 18-21 months timeframe.

SY's pictures were taken when she's about 18-21 months, SJ's were taken during a studio photoshoot when she's ~21 months and Yao's photos were taken recently when she's 19months plus. I personally feel that Yao looks more like SY although there are some similarities to SJ.

Tips:
SY's at the top left, SJ's at the top and bottom right and Yao's at the bottom left

Honesty is the best policy

2015-04-21T18:39:00.000+08:00

I have always pride myself for being an honest person. In school, one of my form teachers always looked up to me when she wanted an honest answer. Whatever the other students answered, she would ask me specifically before she made her decisions. I couldn't tell how honored I felt at that moment.

Today, I'm very happy that SY is showing this trait too. I can't deny that there are times when she lied to me or hubby because she's afraid of getting a scolding from us. However, she will always tell us the truth after sometime, probably because her conscience wouldn't allow it.

But I'm most proud of her, when she has consecutively demonstrated her honesty when teacher marked her papers wrongly. A few times she could have scored 100 marks in her papers, but that was because the teacher marked wrongly. My girl would always go to inform the teacher and thus have her marks reduced. I was deeply touched when she told me she went to the toilet to cry after that. But I was very proud of her, and I kept telling her, it would be useless to get 100% if it is not honestly earned. After all, exams are meant to test us on how much we understand a subject, not so much in measuring our intelligence. Attitude still matters most. And I'm so glad that she understands. This is her 4th year in primary school, and she has continuously demonstrate this honest behavior year after year.

But much to my own amusement, she also persuaded a boy next to her to show teacher his paper when the teacher marked it wrongly, and because of that, his marks which was 60 dropped further... I am not sure to be happy or sad in this case... but again, some of her friends preferred to remain quiet and let it be. My advice to her is that we do what we feel is right, and we can't always persuade people to do what we think is right. But we must be true to ourselves always. I hope she will always remember this.

Gong Gong's Garden

2015-04-19T15:30:00.000+08:00

Gosh, I didn't realise this post has been sitting in the draft folder for such a long time! Looking at the date it was originally composed, this was like 3 years ago! I better get this out now, and I believe Dad's garden has gone thru some major revamp too, for the fruits and plants have changed quite a lot.

The Palm Tree, my favourite

Oops, I don't know what's this...

Bananas

Soursoup or Durian Belanda

The unripe version

Hmm.. I need to ask Gong Gong what is this!

Rambutans

Mulberries

They looked like red caterpillars, but they are good for the eyes

How I wished I have green fingers like my dad.

SJ's First Lost Tooth

2015-02-01T13:00:00.000+08:00

Losing her first tooth was no easy business indeed. Unlike Jie Jie, she had to have it pulled out by a dentist. We noticed that her new tooth was coming out but got 'blocked' by the old one which was still there. It got us worried when we saw the new tooth was growing abnormally, so we took her right away to see the dentist after school.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find a dentist on a weekday night. It was already after 8pm, and we didn't like the idea of waiting until the next day. After searching for quite sometime, we finally found one, who's attending to her last appointment. We're lucky she agreed to have a look at SJ before she closed up. We waited quite awhile before we had our turn. We were so relieved when the dentist assured us that once the old tooth had been pulled out, the new out would grow nicely again. SJ was very brave, she went thru the whole process calmly.

At the dentist (I didn't take a picture when the dentist was pulling her teeth out)

Out it came finally! I have been promising to help her write a letter to the Tooth Fairy, but I kept procrastinating!

My girl finally let me take her toothless picture after 3 days! :)

p/s: Notes for my own records:

Sze Yi's 1st tooth came out when she's ~5y4m old (11 Apr, 2011)

Sze Juin's 1st tooth came out when she's ~6y8m old (29 Jan, 2015)

Yao's 1st Birthday

2014-09-29T23:00:00.000+08:00

Can't believe that I haven't blogged about my little baby's anecdotes for the past 9 months! Guess I have a lot of catching up to do.

Well, just some brief updates. We celebrated Yao's lunar birthday 11 days ago with a simple tradition. Since it happened to be the school holiday, so both Jie Jies were at home. We took half day off ourselves. Prepared mee suah for her per Amah's request. She loved it and even asked for second helpings.

Organic millet mee suah (to symbolised long life) cooked with wild salmon, English spinach, minced pork, Goji berries.

Ta Jie wanted to feed her too

Next is feasting with the chicken drumstick. This symbolised good life later

Then the most exciting moment came next. Both Jie Jies have been briefing her on this a few days before her lunar birthday. They kept telling her about this and wanted to 'rehearse' with her in advance. I had to put a stop to this as it might affect her choice on the actual day :)

Abacus, ruler, pen and book - which would she choose?

This would kind of predict her field of career in the future, according to Amah.

1, 2, 3... she's happily moving towards her object of interest

We all thought she would pick abacus like both her Jie Jies but to our amazement, she picked the notebook! Well, she was hesitating between the ruler and the notebook, and in the end she decided on the notebook. Haha, looks like Mommy's craze on the Big Bad Wolf had some influence on her. All these while I've been trying to read books to her, but she doesn't show any interest. It rather surprised me that she settled on book instead of abacus.

Yao examining her latest treasure, a birthday present from her Ta Jie

It's good to have Ta Jie helping with the preparation of all these stationaries.

Next we went to Amah's house because she wanted to let Yao received some blessings from the Goddess of Mercy.

She enjoyed playing with Jojo (their Ji Chek's doggy). She even went to touch the doggy's nose without any fear!

After all that, we just took her to the mall for a walking experience since this was her first official walk with shoes on (according to Amah they are not supposed to walk with shoes before they reach 1 year old).

Fast forward 10 days later, we celebrated her English birthday. Thanks to my little sister's help, we managed to come out with a cake, 100% purely from fruits.

Our fruity creation - made from honey dew (as the 1st tier), papaya (2nd tier), alphabets and the Number 1 from mango, and the other decorations from kiwi, cherry tomato, papaya and honey dew.

I got this idea from Soo Sean as I'm rather rigid with my baby's diet. Since I was looking for an eggless version, and wanted to avoid those high sugary and processed ingredients, I finally settled for this. Thanks to her, I got all the utensils (cake ring and alphabet cutter) from her. Initially I wanted to make the base from water melon but since all my girls were still coughing on the eve itself, I discarded the idea and came out with another alternative that I could accept (even though honey dew was rather cooling too).

With different lighting capture from a different camera

Can you see the candle? It's also from a fruit!

I stumbled upon this idea when I was contemplating whether to use normal wax candles... I have a nice happy birthday wax candles bought long long time ago (when Sze Yi was 6), but I didn't want to contaminate the cake with wax residue so I settled on this instead. I love the glow from the orange. Thanks to hubby who made this possible, as my original natural wick from the orange was not working as expected, so he did a little engineering to make it glow.. Ah, so now it's perfect!

Our family photo...oops, my baby's close to crying

With my little sister, the chef behind the cake decoration :)

Urgh... Yao is crying because we woke her up for the cake blowing as my sister needed to catch a bus.. poor baby, she's not feeling well too. Even though my original intention was to let her enjoy the cake or even smash it, she hardly touched the cake as we just woke her up for the birthday song singing. We didn't even manage to cut the cake as we're in a rush. However, I gave her little slices of grapes and mango while we're preparing the cake (she's still running around and I needed to keep an eye (and also hands on her) so having my sister around was a blessing. I might not be able to come out with this if I was all alone.

We let Yao cut the cake on the actual day after work just to complete the tradition and she got to sample some kiwis. After that it was present opening time. This time she's smiling all over :)

Happy birthday, my little baby. Hope you grow up to be a healthy and bouncy princess, and continue to be doted by all of us. You are our little gem always :)

Yao Walks At ~10.5months!

2014-08-30T13:11:00.000+08:00

It was an achievement way surpassed her two Jie Jies!

This was taken outdoor when we let her walk barefoot on the grass for the 1st time. She's having fun!

P/s: The background voice was from Er Jie :)

Can you guess who is who?

2014-05-29T23:30:00.000+08:00

I am a very rigid mom. Since both my elder girls took their first studio shot when they were exactly 8 months old, I decided to do the same with my youngest baby. Yes, even though up to the point of taking a half day's leave to have this accomplished (The first two turned 8 months on a non-working day, but this one didn't). But I'm lucky I have a very accommodating husband :)

So, here are all of them at exactly 8 months old. Can you guess who is who?

The images are blur because I snapped from their photo frames

Scroll down for tips...

Hint... this is Yao

And here are the Jie Jies... do you see any resemblance?

SzeYao's 3 months update

2013-12-29T09:02:00.000+08:00

At 3 months, it's still hard to capture her smiling. Not that she didn't smile, but she looks so cool most of the time.

Yao at 3 months.

This photo was taken after Mass, we attended the Feast of the Holy Family together

The most major milestone that happened on the exact day she turned 3 months was... she can flip! Too bad only Amah witnessed it, while Mommy was at the kitchen. And worse so it never happened anymore as of this writing (she's slightly over 4 months and 1week now), so I'm not sure if what Amah considered as flipping is the same as my definition. According to Amah, she can only do it on her left side, and it happened when she's really angry and kicked real hard.

Important notes for my own reference:

- She can lift up her head by herself, but not for long

- She loves it best when I put her down to change her nappy

The closest that I managed to capture her smiling

- Sleep thru the night from 12am to ~5am.

- She's an early riser, she'll wake up by 6am and goo-gaa with me. And what I love her best is she's a happy baby, always wake up smiling.

- She 'talks' a lot with her Daddy, and only with him. Not so much with me or Amah.

- I've stopped letting her wear mittens when she's ~2months old, so that she is able to learn how to grasp things. By now, if I let her wear her mittens again, they will be all wet as she loves to suck her hands.

- She has a preference to hold our hands when we feed her

- She drinks around 3-4 bottles of 4oz EBM at the babysitter's. Direct feed when at home with me. Bottled-fed when in Amah's care (when I need to go out).

- I started her on pacifier when she's around 2 months. I can't help it as she's a light sleeper and easily startled by noise. She woke up once I put her down, but could sleep longer when I carried her.

- She was 5kg when she's 2 months old (measured during the visit to the paed for her 2 months vaccinations). I didn't measure her at 3months

- Both her Jie Jie adores her but I wouldn't let them carry her when I'm not around.

I am a 2nd big sister!

2013-11-14T22:55:00.000+08:00

Welcoming Baby Yao into the family... and I'm now promoted to 二姐

Pneumonia Again...

2012-07-04T23:23:00.003+08:00

It's Mei Mei's turn this time.

Her fever started on Tuesday, we took her to the GP on Thursday, the Paed on Saturday, and all ruled out pneumonia. When Monday the situation didn't improved, we decided to let her go for Nebulizer every 4 hours. However, after the 2nd dose, we felt something was not right and decided to have her done the X-ray. Results showed her right lung was covered with phlegm at the lower portion. So she had to be admitted right away, and doctor told us the standard antibiotics course for pneumonia took at least 5 days.

This photo was taken on Day2, she had finally adapted to the new environment. Can you see the princess wall papers in her room? At least that's one reason she agreed to stay in this room, because it was rather noisy due to the special ventilation system, and she was very afraid of that sound in the beginning.

SJ holding the Nebulizer mask on her own. This reminds me of her Jie Jie's experience 3 years ago.

I didn't let Jie Jie visit her in the beginning because it could spread, and she felt very sad. So she made this card for Mei Mei. How sweet of her.

SJ started to develop some rashes on her chest, which spread to her neck, legs and arms as days went by. Initially, doctor told us it's eczema so we were told to apply a mild steroid cream (Hydrocortisone cream 1%). By Day3, there's still no improvement so maybe it could be due to a bacteria caused by pneumonia. We're still waiting for the blood test to tell us. So far, SJ had done blood test and urine test. Doctor said it's not necessary to do the TB skin test for her since he's very sure she didn't had the bacteria.

So now, both Hubby and I took turns to camp in the hospital with her. Hopefully all the test results would turn out good.

Funny Conversations

2012-06-30T22:15:00.004+08:00

1. A 4-year-old brainstorming process:

Jie Jie: Uh-oh, Daddy has gone to sleep, now nobody can teach me how to do my homework already.
Mei Mei: Ask Mommy!
Jie Jie: Mommy doesn't know Chinese.
Mei Mei: Erm, ask Amah?
Jie Jie: Amah doesn't know Chinese either.
Mei Mei: Call your friends?
Jie Jie: Daddy will scold me one....
Mei Mei: He's slept, he won't know one.
Jie Jie: I don't know their numbers.
Mei Mei: Ask your teacher then.
Jie Jie: Cannot la, I don't know her number too.
Mei Mei: No, go and ask teacher tomorrow.
Jie Jie: Will be too late already.
Mei Mei: Let me see, which one you don't know?

Jie Jie showed Mei Mei her book. Mei Mei took a look and then asked: 1+1 = ?

Jie Jie: No la, not like this one la.. That's maths question.
Mei Mei: Then which one?
Jie Jie: You won't know also one la.. (And she started to get restless and worried).

Mei Mei went to my room and blurted out: Mommy, Jie Jie doesn't know how to do her homework.

2. Last 2 week, we were going back to Ipoh to celebrate Father's Day with my father. He had boiled some home-grown black sugar cane water for us. So I asked the girls what should they say to him.

Mei Mei: Amitofou, Amitaba. (She was taught to say this phrase as Thank You in school).
Jie Jie: No, you cannot say Amitaba to a Christian. That's not showing your respect.
Mei Mei: Then I'll say Xie Xie, since I'm a Chinese.
Jie Jie: I think the best is Thank You, that's the safest.
Mei Mei: No, I don't want to say Thank You. That's amoh.
Jie Jie: I like Amoh, I still prefer Thank You.

Father's Day 2012

2012-06-17T18:27:00.000+08:00

Sze Yi surprised us by asking Daddy to sit down on the floor. She did a little curtsy and then said the most touching thing that I ever heard.

爸爸，

你的大手牵着我的小手，

我就不害怕。

请你等我长大时，

我会给你最好的报答！

爸爸，

祝你父亲节快乐！

爸爸，

我爱您！

谢谢您！

She ended that with a big bear hug for Daddy (now I know why she asked Daddy to sit down on the floor so that she could reach him).

Thanks to her class teacher for teaching her this.

哈巴狗

2012-06-13T22:10:00.001+08:00

一隻哈巴狗, 坐在大門口
眼睛黑油油, 想吃肉骨頭
一隻哈巴狗, 吃完肉骨頭
尾巴搖一搖, 向我點點頭

SJ said this is my song. I was very surprised at first. When I asked her why, she replied, "Because you work in 哈巴狗 mah...."

Boyfriends

2012-05-25T06:36:00.002+08:00

I couldn't imagine that my girls would start talking about boyfriends at the age as young as four! Gosh, I thought to myself, I couldn't remember having any crush when in primary school, and my small one has not even enter primary yet. What's happening to the kids nowadays?!

She even had the gall to tell the boy to marry her when they are bigger next time! LOL! And then, the boy no longer studying in the same school now. She asked me, "Mommy, how am I going to marry HP next time, because he's not coming to school anymore?" I told her, "Maybe next time you'll meet him again?" But then I quickly added, "Lets find another guy, ok?" And she did! So fast!

The elder one is not that bold, at least she kept her feelings to herself. She shared it with me, of course, but she didn't go and tell the boy, thank goodness. Gosh, gosh, gosh, I still haven't recover from such shock yet. Someone please tell me, is this normal, or only my kids are experiencing this?

A Feisty Fowl Four Celebration!

2012-05-18T23:08:00.000+08:00

What's better than this to start off the day?

Birthday messages from Jie Jie

The birthday cake, special request from the birthday girl. She wanted a blue one, but didn't want a 'boy' angry bird. So Mommy requested for the ribbon to make it like a 'girl' angry bird :) It turned out rather nice, don't you think so?

See how happy the birthday girl looked?

Singing of birthday songs in 3 different versions

1,2,3, blow! Can you see the angry bird's tail?

Cutting of birthday cake with Jie Jie

Class photo, with the birthday girl flanked by her two best friends

Family photo with her classmates

After that, it's the moment everyone was waiting for! Nearly every kid had more than one helping of cake, until the teacher had to stop them in case they were too full for lunch later. The cake came in two flavours, the angry bird being longan lychee flavour while the base was chocolate cake. For the first time in many years, I was rather satisfied with the cake in appearance and taste (even though it was slightly smeared). Yes, we ordered the cake from the same shop every year :)

Distribution of party packs after everyone cleaned up

They're angry bird puzzles!

Attending her birthday party helped me get to know more about her classmates. According to her teacher, some of her friends dropped out because one of the uncle who used to transport them to school moved away to another state. One mommy even had to take the bus to fetch her child everyday. There's a girl from an orphanage nearby who could not talk since birth, because she was tied and left there by her mother. What a pitiful story, our hearts went out to her immediately. Lucky thing she was a bright student and she had a brother in the same school too. And luckily they were provided transportation and education. Such real-life situations made me felt grateful that there were still such good people around to take care of the more unfortunate.

It's half day for her today, because Daddy and Mommy planned to spend some time with her.

Wearing her birthday present from Aunty HP, which came in her favourite color!

She loved it very much!

When asked what did she want for lunch, she chose wanton noodles. So we took her to a nice Sarawak noodles restaurant which offered mee kolok, and looked rather similar to wanton noodles :)

Yummy, yummy!

And then it's off to her favourite place, Youth Park! Looks like they just installed a new see-saw!

Happily galloping away!

And finally, opening her presents! One from Auntie SL, the other from her classmate.

She loved them to bits!

Happy birthday Sze Juin. Hopefully you'll slowly get rid of your angry bird temper and grow up to be a happy girl :)

Cards Making Month

2012-05-16T06:07:00.000+08:00

May is here again, and I've been really really busy! See what we've been up to....

Mommy wondered how I got the time to do this,

since I did it in school (not during Art lesson), on the last day of my exam!

Card for Mommy - continuing from above which was the cover page,
here's the inside and back page

Bookmark made by Juin Juin in school

Cards made by Juin Juin and me for our teachers

Card for Mei Mei

Hmmm... Mommy forgot to take a picture of the birthday card I made for Cousin Samantha. If you noticed, most of my cards are not properly coloured. That's because, I just love to draw, but I hate to colour :)

Our first homemade playdough

2012-05-15T19:02:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, I suddenly felt like making use of my cream of tartar which had been sitting on the shelf unopened, for years! It was given to me by a friend because she knew I wanted to make some playdough, but I only got to use it recently.. Oops! Luckily there's no expiration date ;P

Actually I've been keeping a few recipes on homemade playdough when I came across them, but unfortunately, I didn't get to try them. It happened that I recently I came across GT's proven recipe, so I just follow that as it's the freshest in my mind.

I mixed the ingredients in this sequence (though I'm sure the sequence doesn't matter).

1 cup water

1/4 cup salt

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup flour

1 Tbs. vegetable oil

Food colouring (I piped down thru a straw, 4 times to make an estimates of 4 drops)

Steps:

Mix them well in a pot and cook over medium heat on the stove, stirring constantly, until it forms into a ball. As soon as it joins into one big glob, take it off the heat and put on a plate to let it cool down. After about 5-10 minutes, knead it a few times until it is nice and soft.

The end result? Taa--da!

MIL's figurine creation :)

My girls love it! Even MIL claimed it remained soft after exposed for a long time, unlike those commercial type playdough.

And I didn't need to worry if they cleaned their hands thoroughly after playing. After all, it's edible!

Lesson learnt:

The first batch that I made, I forgot to add in the vegetable oil, so I got them all sticky and couldn't really form into a ball, as it stuck to my cooking pot and also my hands. Imagine my amazement after I added the vegetable oil to the mixture, it's like being transformed instantly. To be safe, I boiled it again after that, as I'm not sure what would be the side-effects of using uncooked oil. They still turned out all-right, luckily.

4 or 5?

2012-05-04T01:03:00.000+08:00

It's my lunar birthday today. Amah said I'm 5! Wow, what a big jump. Jie Jie was so confused and kept asking Amah, "If Juin Juin is 5 today according to the Chinese calendar, then when her English birthday comes, she'll be going back to 4? How can that be?" Confusing!

I have my own question though. If I'm 5 today, that means I no longer go to Nursery Blue? I should go to K1 or 5-year old class instead?

Mommy had a tough time explaining that Chinese Calendar counts things differently. It's always 1 year older. But in school, we always follow the English one. It also happened that this year, the Chinese one comes earlier than the English one. Sigh, why do they want to make things so complicated?

Terrible or Terrific Three?

2012-05-03T17:54:00.002+08:00

I used to mention that SJ was very easy to handle, and I could bring her anywhere with me. In church, she hardly disturbed me. During friends' get-together, she's an angel and behaved very well. In a shopping trip, she helped me pick the stuffs that I needed and didn't make a fuss at all. She even gave comments on which dress was nice on me ;P What I loved her the most was she didn't ask me to buy 'this and that' for her, unlike her Jie Jie. She's not greedy at all, and would decline anything that we offered to buy her just because she's got one already. When she was asked to choose anything, she'll pick the smaller ones and gave the bigger ones to Jie Jie. Or, she'll leave the pink ones for Jie Jie, because she knew that's Jie Jie's favourite colour. Isn't she sweet?

Well, everything changed not too long ago, or when she reached the Terrible Three stage. She had terrible temper tantrums. She made loud noises in church. She wanted me to carry her all the time. She demanded for things when I took her for a shopping spree. Her mood swings were dramatic. She could be smiling at one time, and switched to an angry bird the next. None of us knew how to handle her. She got very attached to me, until when Daddy picked her from school, she refused to follow him back! She wanted me to come immediately! Gosh, such a difficult child.

Still, she can be an angel when she's in the right mood. She's our 'coffee controller'. Nobody can drink coffee when she's around. She used my conscience to make me put back the coffee when I did grocery shopping with her. That's because long long time ago, Daddy told her and Jie Jie that coffee is a No-No. So she used back our words on us. She remembered every single word we said, and will remind us when we least expected it. She would question us on our actions if it contradicted with our words. So, we had to be very very careful when she's around... Can you believe it that we're actually afraid of her!

Terrible or terrific, I hope it's just a stage that she's going thru. I can't believe time flies so fast. In another day, she'll be four soon, according to the lunar calendar. I silently prayed that Four would be a fantastic time for us all.

Sibling Influence

2012-04-13T13:14:00.007+08:00

I surprised Mommy with this not long after I heard Jie Jie recited this....

Of course, there were some incorrect pronunciations, but what would you expect from a 3++ year old? Even Mommy claimed she's not as good!