Saturday was not a particularly great day for me. We were in a hawker centre and as usual, nat was fretting while I tried to pacify her. When the maid took over, she was all smiles ... sigh I thought I had already got used to this ... but I guess not. To add salt to wound, some kapo uncle standing nearby thought he would give me his so very insightful view that "Your kid seems to like the maid better." I gave him a good glare and he shut up.

When I got home, I was in a rather depressed mood. The more I looked at nat, the more irritated I got, why can't she recognise who is her mummy, and after all the sleepless nights and sacrifices I had made for her. For the rest of the night, I pretty much ignored her and poor daddy had to take over and pacify her.

When I awoke on Sunday, I was glad that the feelings of resentment had disappeared. After all, nat's just a baby and she really is not aware of what's going on. If the maid is her primary care giver, of course she expresses preferences for her. I told myself I will try to control my emotions better and not let jealousy get in the way. But I guess it's easier said than done. But I'll try ...

On a happier note, we brought Nat for her weekly walk at the Botanic Gardens. This time round, she really is learning to "walk". I think that at home, she is not so confident of walking without support, for fear of falling on the hard ground. But on the grass patch, she really is a lot more eager to walk. My clever little bud is really quite cute ... while walking ... if at any time she feels insecure, she'll quickly plop her little butt on the ground, to lower the centre of gravity.

I love nat and no matter how my emotions may go awry sometimes, I will still love my baby.

What is it about Little Bo Beep that my little babe has issues with? For those of you who have never heard the rhyme, it goes:

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can't tell where to find them
Leave them alone and they'll come home
Bringing their tails behind them

A perfectly harmless rhyme or so it seems. Nat has been watching a CD with all these nursery rhymes sung in the form of catchy tunes. It's quite good with all the familiar o'le songs, Little Miss Muffet, Old King Cole, London Bridge, Three Little Kittens, Mary had a little lamb. She enjoys it ever so much and sometimes even attempts to dance to the tunes. The only issue she has is with Little Bo Peep. The moment Little Bo Peep comes on screen, she gives her infamous pout and a few seconds later, she cries. Initially, I thought it was just a coincidence but I've tested the theory a few times and have come to the same conclusion. There's something about the little miss that she hates.

Gary is convinced that it's because Bo Peep is in the form of a racoon in the cartoon and nat is frightened by the 2 black eyes (sort of panda-like) but i wonder ... she really looks perfectly nice and harmless ... oh well ... I guess this is one rhyme i ain't gonna hear nat recite when she gets older.

I just cannot resist putting this video of nat here, she is so super cute, despite all the sleepless nights I have to endure, it is such times that make you remember the joy of having children.

Colour of the week is Blue and nat wore the loveliest little blue dress to Julia Gabriel. These bi-weekly classes with nat is something that I look forward to, because nat seems to enjoy it so much. Today, she did a little dance and jig as the teacher played on the guitar, impressing everyone around her.

People seem to love her hair, saying that it's hard to get this "pokey" effect without using any gel ... sigh ... looks exactly like daddy's hair.

As usual, she totally enjoyed the painting session. Today, the babies used their hands to feel the texture of salt on paint. Very fun for nat, but made poor mummy dirty with paint all over. I had to quickly whisk her to the toilet and wash the bright blue paint off her.

Of course, she enjoyed the swim session as well.

It's been a while since we visited the Botanic Gardens, so early on Sunday morning, gary and i went for an early morning walk together with nat. I think there's something about fresh air that excites babies. Nat was in a jolly happy mood, what better place to have fun and look at her three favourite things: water fountains, dogs and birds.

She squealed and she chuckled and got all excited whenever we saw a dog in the distance. Eventually, we ended up in a grassy area near the lake, where I thought we could rest and let her try walking. You should have seen my little monkey, think she's not too fond of the pokey feeling of the grass, so she kept trying to climb up my leg whenever I placed her on the grass. She made mummy all dirty as her muddy little feet stepped on my t-shirt. sigh ...

Later, we met a new furry friend, a little doggie called baby. I was rather surprised that nat showed no fear of dogs at all, since I have always been scared of dogs since young and it was only recently that I got over the fear of dogs.

Overall, it was a great day and baby nat fell asleep the moment we got back to the car.

My little nat is a water baby, she loves playing with water. This week at Julia Gabriel, one of the activities was waterplay and she really loves it. I really treasure these times that I spend with my little baby. Some days (quite often, actually), I look back at her old baby photos and I'm just amazed at how much she has grown.


Today, Gary told me about this documentary that relates on how between the age of 0-2 years old, a baby's brain is truly like a sponge, built to absorb everything and anything. I believe it is important to offer baby a stimulating yet fun environment. Hehehe, still haven't figured out how though ... will share if any thoughts come to mind.

Today marks the first full day off since my part time scheme began and I am really enjoying my time spent with baby nat. The morning started off at julia gabriel, i'm beginning to find these classes very interesting. There's lots of singing, story telling, puppets and today we even did colour painting and water play with the babies. Of course, baby nat, the water baby enjoyed herself so much that she started to bawl when I carried her off, tsk tsk, made me all wet too. As for the colour painting, let's just say blue lipstick does not become her, haha, unfortunately i did not manage to capture a shot of my little picasso at work.

Nat is really daddy's girl, she always enjoys spending time with her daddy and pulling his spiky hair, which, by the way looks just like hers.

Yesterday was a big day for my baby, it marked the first day of school :) playschool that is. I had signed nat up for julia gabriel at evans road. I guess the aim was not really with the hope of her turning into some child genius, but just to allow her to interact more with other kids and intro some interesting activities in her life.

She seemed to settle very easily into the environment, listening intently to the teacher and giggling and chuckling when i swung her up and down in tune with the song that we were singing. It's really quite an interactive environment, with the use of puppets, dramatic story telling and singing to get the kids interested. Surprisingly, most of the kids could actually focus, at least for some part of the lesson. Although, I greatly sympathised with this poor grandpa whose grandson bawled the moment he placed him onto the mat. It was quite tiring though, chasing after nat as she tried to pull another little girl's hair ... tsk tsk ... why can't she sit still like a sweet little girl. But well, that's my baby nat for you.

These are some pics taken from my camera phone.

1 January 2008

New year, new resolutions. It's been an interesting year 2007, with nat in our lives. hectic but nice ... today we met up with our good frens for a new year lunch gathering. i'm really glad to have such great friends, we don't see each other all that much but when we do ... things don't seem to have changed much, we just carry on from where we left off, just like in jc. best of all, nat is blessed to have such doting "godmas" who love her lots and are always showering her with lovely pressies. recently, she also seems to have got over the "fear of strangers" phase, and was quite pleased to be carried. my nat loves babbling a lot, hmm, genetically this trait not from me ... probably her daddy.