Thursday, 27 November 2008

One of my weekly routines with the kids is our trip to Botanic Gardens. If the weather is not too hot, nat runs to feed the fish at the lake. If the sun is too strong, we stay in the shade of the visitors' centre, where there are many nooks and corners for her to explore. Didi will enjoy the nice cool breeze in his stroller and drink his milk. It's nice ... even better when daddy join us, occasionally.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Didi lucas is getting a lot more interactive these days. He loves it when we talk to him and often coos back to us. He is actually a very good boy, brought him out last weekend and he is usually fast asleep in my baby bjorn sling most of the time, only cried when he is hungry. Most nights now, he wakes up about twice, but falls right back asleep after feeding. Only thing is that during weekends, when I am with him most of the day, he rejects the bottle. Somehow, when I am at work, he realises that he has no choice and drinks from the bottle, albeit reluctantly.

He sure is a screamer though. When he wants his milk or wants to be carried, he has no qualms about letting out a shrill cry. I should capture it on video one of these days. Gary says the grouchiness comes from me, i beg to differ haha.

I am so proud of nat. Today, she had her swimming lesson with Coach David and she managed to hold her breath for a few seconds while retrieving a toy underwater. The pool was heated today and felt relatively warm. When we dipped into the pool, she commented "The water is hot." Her comment got me chuckling ... it was said in a very matter of fact voice. Well, we look forward to more swimming lessons.

Monday, 24 November 2008

This weekend, we brought nat, our little water baby to the Downtown East water theme park. Had a free entry pass for the family, so I thought why not make good use of it. Was a good decision because nat had a really wonderful time there.

I'm not really a theme park kinda person so I was more like the official photographer for gary and nat. As I looked at gary running having fun with nat, I felt happy that nat and her daddy have such a close relationship. Nat adores her daddy and is always full of smiles when she is with him. He took her for interesting thrill rides on the slides at the theme park, while mummy the coward looked on haha.

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

It's official, my baby nat has reached the terrible twos at the age of 21 months old. She screams, kicks, bites, scratches and throws tantrums up to 10 times a day. Naughty things she likes to do include: switching the TV on and off, climbing on the chair to tap at the computer, playing with the telephone etc. If you stop her from doing these things, immediately, she throws herself on the ground and gets into one of her crying tantrums. I've been wondering what to do? Scold her? Ignore her? Reason with her? I do hope this is just a phase she is going through. After all, I told myself I would not want my kid to be throwing themselves on the floor in public places throwing a tantrum, yet this is precisely what nat is doing. Maybe I should follow Super Nanny and try the "naughty corner" theory.

I sometimes find myself getting frustrated and losing my temper at nat, which is something I shouldn't do. At the end of the day, as I look on at my sleeping baby, all frustrations melt away and I remind myself just how much I love her.

On a more interesting note, I finally bought a table and chair set for nat. She has been sprawling on the floor while drawing and I thought that it is high time she got a proper "work" area. So this evening, I was assembling the table and chair for her. Being highly curious, she joined me. Look at the pic and admire her work of art. I was quite impressed that she even managed to put fit the screws and washers in the holes.

Nat has been continuing her swimming lessons and I'm really proud of her. She can hold her breathe for a few seconds underwater and can even blow bubbles. She really enjoys swimming, which is rather odd, considering she is always protesting during her bath time. Anywayz, check out her funky new hairstyle, courtesy of my mum ... haha ... this is called the bowl hair cut.

Sunday, 16 November 2008

Been an interesting weekend. On Friday, I went to the Croc's sale at Singapore Expo. Innocently, I thought that it was a weekday morning and not many people would be there, so I brought nat along with me. I was thinking we could just whizz in, pick up some nice cheapie shoes and whizz out again, maybe even drop in at the East Coast beach. I was so wrong. The whole place was filled with people, grabbing and shoving and nat certainly did not like the crowd. Since I was all the way there, I was determined to get nat a pair of shoes, 2 pairs actually, with some shoving. nat was so frus at being squeezed in the crowd, she bit me ... my little savage ... sigh ... i gave her a lecture later on how she should not bite people. She did look slightly remorseful.

On Saturday, we brought nat to the nearby community centre. I had high expectations as the banner had publicised a night of puppetry and music. Unfortunately, the puppets scared nat. The moment the puppets came out, nat whined to go home saying she was scared. Yet, as we walked out, she kept turning around to glance at the puppets. The truth is, I thought the puppets were a bit frightening too, so I was glad to go ... sigh ... aren't puppets supposed to be sweet and cute?

On Sunday, we brought the whole family, including didi lucas to the Hort Park for a walk . I enjoyed myself, I like the after effects of a good walk or workout, makes u feel energised and refreshed. Although bringing didi out is sometimes very troublesome, I like to make the effort as I feel that it is important for us to do things as a family.

Photos to come later ... too lazy to download now.

Thursday, 13 November

Been having sleepness nights quite a lot this week due to lucas's crankiness. Finally succumbed to the dark side of the force yesterday and gave him the pacifier. It seemed to work, kept him quiet, just before he slept, he seemed calmer and happier and he woke up only 2 times in the night as compared to 4-5 times.

Check out the video of big jiejie nat taking care of her didi.

Monday, 10 November 2008

A exciting weekend for nat. A trip to the zoo, the Sentosa beach and on Sunday, she met her baby friends at the Jacob Ballas carnival. It's no wonder that every night, she falls asleep really fast in bed. But it's great to see the smile on her face and see that she is having a good time.

Her favourite animal at the zoo is the tiger. She will imitate the growling sound of the tiger in an attempt to "scare" mummy. My little sweetheart also adores the beach. Place her on the sand and she runs around screaming straight into the sea and the whole entourage of us end up chasing her to make sure she doesn't fall into the sea. It's nice chilling by the beach in the evening with the kids. It's different from the past when gary and i would hang out by the beach in our board shorts, sip a magarita and look at people. With the kids, all our attention is focused on them and their cute antics. Didi lucas slept for a while, enjoying the sea breeze before waking up to look for milk.

Some updates on nat's development:

- she can recite the rhyme one two buckle my shoe ...it's quite funny, when she gets to the last line, nine ten, she very matter of factly tells you it's a big hen. Never fails to crack me up ... i should try to capture it on video.

- she is attempting to sing. i've been watching the sound of music cd with her occasionally and she likes to hum and sing the do-re-mi song. you've got to try really hard to decipher it though because she is way off pitch. The other song she likes to sing is Happy Birthday, courtesy of the baby songs cd i have in my car.

nat is also obsessed with towels, luckily she is not attached to any particular towel, her only requirement is that it has to be nice and clean. we offered her didi's smelly vomitty towel , she took a sniff at it and she flatly rejected it. Sigh, my baby has high towel standards.

Friday, 7 November 2008

Whenever possible, I'll bring nat and lucas together with my maid to the park. It's nice to just have a stroll and enjoy the fresh air together with the kids. Recently, nat has just started to call didi baby lucas ... it's really very sweet ... and she gives didi a big fat kiss before she sleeps every night.

Tuesday, 4 November 2008



Today was a fun day for nat as I brought her to Dempsey for her free Aquaducks trial class. This is basically a swim programme for kids, from 6 months old. The instructor Coach David is young and energetic and nat had a lot of fun with him. Classes are kept very small with only about 3-4 babies/parents per session. I was quite impressed when this little boy (he looks about 10 months old) dived underwater to pick up a toy (of course with the help of the coach) and came back up unscathed. Nat had a screaming good time and learnt a new nursery rhyme - Humpty Dumpty. It's so cute, when we come to the part when Humpty has a great fall, the kids are encouraged to jump into the water. I'm beginning to bring nat out a bit more on my own, just like the old times, something which I really miss since didi came along. I'll probably continue these swim classes for nat for a term at least, and me and my little swim baby will have lots of fun together. How fast they grow up!

Another new milestone ... my sweetheart speaks in sentences ... When confined to the stroller against her will, she instructs mummy, saying "I come out!". When didi cries, she gleefully tells me "Mummy scold didi." When she wants her favourite ribena drink, she says "I am thirsty." It's really cute listening to her.

As for didi, we had a sleep breakthrough with him yesterday. Instead of his usual nocturnal ways, he actually nodded off at 10pm yesterday. What a good boy! Let's see if we can get him onto a routine.

Sunday, 2 November 2008

This weekend has been quite fun-filled for both our kids. Yeah, you heard right, both the kids. Decided to bring didi along to our outings, first to West Coast Park on Friday evening and later to Hort Park on Sunday morning. As usual, nat had a great time, running around, screaming and generally having lots of fun. Even didi seemed to have a good time. He did not cry much and after that slept quite well when we got home. Outings seem easier to manage when we have our maid along to help us.

I also did a spring cleaning of my wardrobe. Boo hoo, realised that I can't fit into lots of clothes anymore, like those nice cool board shorts I used to wear to the beach. Sigh ... the sacrifices of motherhood! Luckily, managed to squeeze into some of my old skirts and bermudas, so there is still some hope yet.

Oh yes, I have found yet another nice place to bring kids to. Since it's renovation, IKEA at Alexandra has a new play area for kids right in the middle of the restaurant. This way, parents can sit down and have a cup of coffee and relax while watching the kids enjoy themselves at the mini activity station. Quite an ingenious idea I must say.

Thursday, 30 October 2008

My cheeky babe. If you have noticed her colourful bottoms, that's just the bumwear training pants. I'm trying to toilet train her ... let's hope it works.

Thursday, 30 October 2008

Silbling love.

Thursday, 30 October 2008

I miss the days when I used to bring nat to interesting new places to explore, like the zoo and museum. Since lucas came along, we are usually home and even when we do venture out, it is only for a short while. So today, since I was meeting my friends, I brought her along. nat had a good time entertaining my friends and even socialising with a little meimei, a friend's daughter. I was quite surprised by how gentle nat was with the little mei mei.

I really adore my little girl, even though she is really quite a handful these days. As I was telling gary, the most easiest time I had with her was between the age of 1 to 1.5 years when she was just learning to walk and talk, not too super active yet. Now, she is like a dynamo, shooting everywhere at top speed. Yet, I must admit that these times bring about other beautiful experiences for me.

Tuesday, 28 October 2008

We have been trying to teach nat to differentiate colours for quite a while already, but to her, everything is red. So we have bought her this new book, that hopefully will do the trick. There was a sale at Kinokuniya yesterday, so we bought some new books for nat to read. I am particularly attracted to this author called Eric Carle, who has written titles like "The Hungry Caterpillar". His drawings are colourful and vibrant and somehow, nat seems really attracted to them.

Check out nat's new books below. The spider book is to feed her latest spidey obsession while the other book, will hopefully help her to learn the colours.

Didn't really do much yesterday, though we did bring nat to Bukit Timah Hill to check out the monkeys. Unfortunately, the monkeys seem to have disappeared. I recall there used to be heaps of them sitting on the railings on our drive in, not anymore. Nevertheless, nat had fun at the playground.

Monday, 27 October 2008

It's 1am and I have only just managed to put lucas to bed. In fact, it took the 3 of us, the maid, gary and me to lull didi to bed ... I was really tired and had knocked out at 10:30pm already. However, at 12am, I got awakened by gary coming into the room with a super alert didi who definitely did not look ready to sleep. I told gary to go to bed first and I would take over this night duty. Thankfully, didi has finally fallen asleep.

Coping with a newborn and toddler is definitely no walk in the park. Yesterday was the maid's day off, so it was just us and the kids and let me tell you, it sure is tiring managing them. When one sleeps, the other refuses to sleep. When the other sleeps, the one who had earlier slept wakes up. What does this mean? We don't sleep.

Yesterday also marked didi's first official outing, first to the Riders Cafe and later in the evening to Botanic Gardens. Tiring, but I appreciate the fact that we are going out as a family and not just chucking didi at home, as we usually do. That said, I do think I'll start bringing him out more only when he gets a little older. It is quite troublesome and he doesn't seem to enjoy it all that much anyway.

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Recently, nat has picked up a bad habit ... partly our fault. She must have heard us using the word "stupid" and it is now part of her vocabulary. I think it is kind of a rude word for a little toddler to be using and I have been trying to "educate" her, without much success. The thing is that she understands that the word "stupid" has negative connotations, because after i scold her for using that word, she will ask me "no stupid?" in an innocent tone. A bit frustrating, wonder if I should just leave it, and hope that she grows out of this or continue being stern and disciplining her whenever she says the word.

I can't remember if I mentioned previously before, but breastfeeding seems to be easier this time round with lucas and over the past 1.5 months, I have managed to stored up quite a substantial amount of frozen breastmilk. Recently, I decided to thaw some of the earlier frozen breastmilk for didi to drink. Just before I gave the milk to didi, I gave it a little sniff and it smelt horrible! It was a mixture of a metallic, fishy smell. Gary and I did a quick check on the net and realised that this is quite normal. Seems that this has something to do with some kind of enzyme in the milk which causes the milk to change slightly after being frozen. However, the nutritional value is said to be still present. I think that henceforth though, I will try to implement a Just-In-Time system, i.e pump as he feeds so that Lukie never has to drink breastmilk that is more than 3 days old, which means there is no need for freezing of the breastmilk. However, I don't think I will throw out my current batch of frozen breastmilk just yet, keep it in case of emergencies (like if I am out gallivanting too long and we run out of fresh breastmilk). Sigh ... and I thought I could feed him frozen breastmilk for a long long time ... well ... sometimes things don't really turn out as planned. Nevertheless, I still firmly believe that breast is still best for my kids!

Daddy Update: Natalie and Lucas are now 21 and 1.5 months old respectively, and for all my gripes about the administrative tedium of childcare, the joys far outweigh the duties. It is fascinating to watch Nat at this stage of development (18-24 months) – her intellect and vocabulary are expanding much faster than I’d anticipated, and every day brings new surprises. From stringing words together to form simple sentences, to developing the motor dexterity to drink juice from a cup without upending its contents, to swimming unassisted (with floats) – it is amazing how quickly kids progress from a state of total dependence to one of semi-independence. Lucas has also become a big boy, more than doubling in weight from birth, with a seemingly insatiable appetite. He is boisterous, insistent and will (to put it mildly) take the trouble to make his wishes known. He has also grown much better-looking. A friend mentioned that I was taking being a father of 2 well in my stride; I think it’s the other way round, that the kids grow on me as they grow up. I hope I grow on them too.

Tuesday, 21 October 2008

Some pics to share ... a leisurely evening swim, relaxing on the rocker after an early morning bath and sibling love.

Monday, 20 October 2008

Over the weekend, we brought nat to Jacob Ballas. It's been some time since we visited this playground for kids and of course, our little sweetheart had a great time. Weather was kind of hot and after some time, her cheeks looked really rosy. Look at the pics!

Today, didi lucas went for his first injection. Just like nat, his pediatrician is Dr Terence Tan. A really nice and good doctor, he always makes you feel that your kid is in very safe hands with him. Dr Tan commented that didi is growing well, he is a big boy with a growing appetite for milk. At about 1.5 months, didi is weighing 5.3 kg and has a height of 54 cm. I asked him about didi's slightly jaundiced look as well as the white pimple spots on his face. He reassured me that these would naturally go off after a few months.

Love my kids ... although sometimes when both are crying at the top of their voices, it can be quite a pain but well, that's all part and parcel of motherhood, I guess.

Friday, 17 October 2008

It's great staying at home with the kids. Although I feel that half the time, my maid and I are stressed out trying to handle the needs of both. Nat has taken to running around at full speed these days and we have to watch out for her to make sure she doesn't fall or bang into didi.

I'm still trying to introduce new and creative activities for her to do daily, as you will see from the pics. Jigsaws and stuff ... she's also progressed from her chinese reader on spiders to another book. I am glad though that she loves to read. Whenever I ask her if she would like to read a book, she will drop whatever she is doing and quickly take out her favourite book, make herself comfy in mummy's lap and read.

Tantrums are still a daily occurence, including loud screaming sessions which I have managed to capture in a video. I look forward to the day when nat is all grown up and she and I will look back at these videos and laugh :)

Didi's sleeping habits seem to have improved slightly, at least we are not taking 2 hours to lull him to bed and he is sleeping slightly longer before waking up for his next feed. It's interesting though, it is these first few months that the babies change so much, every week you look at him, his features seem to change slightly. He is starting to remind me more of nat when she was his age ...

Love the kids to bits and there's this pic I took just yesterday, of both of them sleeping together, very sweet, that's wat you call a truly Kodak moment.