Ellery’s 4th Birthday

It almost went by without us singing him a birthday song!

There were grand plans. Ellery had been asking to go to the zoo for a long time, but for various reasons we didn’t get to go. There was Legoland, which we were supposed to bring the boys to as a combined treat, but that did not materialise after our move as we got so tied up with house things (rectifications and all that).

In the end, everything was kept simple.

On Christmas day itself we had a special breakfast of pancakes cooked at the table, just like at Slappy Cakes. The boys had loved it when we ate there and my aunt had so generously bought us a crepe maker last Christmas so that we could do that same thing at home. In the end we only used it for pancakes one year later! We had became addicted to crepes and often had those for breakfast instead :)

Home style slappy cakes!

Christmas pancakes!

After breakfast we made logcakes for our neighbours as a way to say hello. The boys had fun delivering them, and we discovered a couple of neighbours celebrate Christmas in a big way. Some others we discovered were vegetarian and couldn’t accept our cake because we used eggs. Need to look for eggless cake recipes!

Sprinkling on the snow

As always we were double booked for Christmas lunch, so we did house-hopping and lots of eating! Usually people at these two homes would greet Ellery a happy birthday, and at the first home we’d sing a birthday song. But somehow this year all that didn’t happen. Thankfully Ellery was patient and didn’t demand or expect anything.

Being cheeky in the car and not wanting to stay still for a picture :)

Lounging in our friend’s house

We left the second house in the late evening and went to Toys R Us so that the boys could choose their own presents. But Ellery fell asleep in the car! We thought he’d wake up in the noise of Toys R Us but he didn’t. We headed for dinner and tried to wake him but he was just too tired. We were joking about how we were celebrating a birthday without the birthday boy! But just as we were finishing our meal he woke up! Just in time to eat something and enjoy some dessert :)

Birthday boy sound asleep

Finally up and being squished

It was back to Toys R Us again, and Ellery chose a bow and arrow set because he had played with a set in one of the houses earlier in the day and loved it!

Home, bathed, bedtime story, in bed. Then Ellery said he wanted to have a birthday song and cake cutting. Throughout the day I had wanted to do it, but there just wasn’t the opportunity. So although it was already 10pm, we pulled out a logcake that we had saved for Ellery, decorated it and sang him a song.

He loved it! Especially when we found that one of the candles was a trick candle that kept lighting up again. The boys had such a good time trying to blow it out :) I think in the end the cake was quite covered in saliva…hmm…

I was really happy to see Ellery beaming :) A simple birthday song and cake at home can be so special :)

An over decorated cake haha!

Happy Birthday!!

Blowing out the candles

Finally blew out the trick candle!

Cut cut cut

Playful brothers

Loving brothers

—————————————————————————————

My dear Ellery, you have certainly grown. You have leaned out and are starting to lose your baby fat. Many people say you look thinner.

You still say the funniest things, and I have a long list of quotes from you that are just hilarious :) I laugh out loud everytime I re-read them! I must save them for you so that you can read what you said as a little boy.

You continue to be independent minded and like doing things in your own way, which is a good thing, but that same quality also makes you rather stubborn and difficult to discipline. Oh, what fights we have had this year. I have had a tough time reminding myself to model kindness and gentleness for you this year. But you can also be extremely charming and loving. You spout sweet nothings at random moments, and that always warms my heart. Whenever you say, “Mummy, I love you soooo much!” I can’t help but squeeze you tight, kiss your head, and all irritations of the day are dissolved.

It’s been a tough year for you too. On the one hand, you’ve become a very sweet and loving older brother to Alyssa. You were so happy when Alyssa was born you ran through school yelling, “I’m a Kor Kor now!!!” You play with her, hug and kiss her (even with dirty hands and oily mouth). On the other hand, I think you unconsciously feel the reduction in attention given to you and have been very whiny since your sister arrived. I have heard that middle children either become very independent, or very whiny. I think you’ve gone the whiny route. I’m hoping it’s a phase, and I’m hoping it ends soon. I try to pull out special moments with you, but it’s tough. I hope you know Mummy is trying her very best.

A new challenge has appeared this year too. One that I was anxious would come, and it did. You were an early reader and many people said to you or within hearing how “clever” they thought you were, and they praised you a lot. Too much. At that time I was thinking to myself that they really should hold back on excessive praise because it might negatively affect Asher, and more so, it might negatively affect you. Now it appears that you are only keen to try things that are easy. Anything that you think you’ll not be good at you immediately say, before even trying, that you can’t do it. I really pray that this is also a phase that will pass quickly. I pray that we’ll be able to build up your confidence to try things that at first seem difficult, and that you’ll realise you actually can do many things if you put your mind to it. Also, that we don’t expect you to be super at everything, but that you at least give things your best effort.

Mummy hasn’t had much time and attention for you this year, unfortunately. Mummy has been very stretched, but I hope you know how much I love you, how special you are to me! You are so unique, and I love you deeply!

 

 

Read Full Post »

Christmas Wonderland

We happened to be meeting my parents for dinner, and as the rain had stopped we decided to go and check out the Gardens by the Bay Christmas Wonderland event. I had heard that there was a Christmas market and was very keen to go. I loved all the Christmas markets in Europe when we were staying in London, and hoped to relive some of that at Gardens by the Bay. And I suppose it’s as close as it gets. Because of the rain, the air was very cool, almost cold. And with all the beautiful light sculptures and market stalls, it did feel like we could be in a cold country somewhere.

Beautiful light sculptures

Family photo (and my kids have laser eyes)

The light sculptures made it seem like there were ornate buildings completely decorated with lights. I wished there was mulled wine, because that was one of the things I completely loved when we were in Europe during Christmas time. The drink somehow makes everything feel much more Christmassy. But there were only regular wine stalls, no mulled wine. I have tried making mulled wine in Singapore before, but it’s best drunk in cool weather.

Boys were so happy to go on a train ride

It was as close to ‘magical’ as you can get when there was fake snow drifting through the air at the Spalliera, a lighted sculpture that formed a ring around a grassy patch (or what was once a grassy patch – hope the grass grows back!). I loved it. The cool weather, the ‘snow’, seeing the kids so happy, Jon, my parents. What more could you wish for? (well, except maybe a glass of mulled wine!)

So happy to see the ‘snow’

Trying to reach for the ‘snow’

Inside the snowy ring

Christmas Wonderland goes on until 1st Jan 2015, but the Christmas markets have ended their run. Gardens by the Bay people, if you are reading this, next year please get someone to sell mulled wine please!!

Read Full Post »

Christmas Time

 

 

The house still has boxes, though we’ve piled them up in three locations. But the rest of it still isn’t the way it’s meant to be yet. Part of the reason is the boxes are where some pieces of furniture are meant to be placed at, part of the reason is we brought over all our furniture even though we hadn’t planned on doing that. We decided that since we hadn’t bought any new furniture to match our new home yet, we’d just use what we have and see how it goes. It’s more cost effective this way too.

Despite the boxes, we managed to clear a space for the Christmas tree that my Mum passed to us :) We’ve set up a Christmas tree since Asher was one year old. At that time we used materials we found around the house to fashion a tree. What a change! Not that a real tree is better or anything, it’s just different. The boys had a fun time setting it up with me, and singing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” as we went round and round when stringing the lights.

Glowing tree

Asher also asked to string some lights at the balcony since we had an extra strand. He wrapped the lights on the railing and was so pleased with the result. Early the next morning he woke up early just to stare at the tree :)

Christmas lights and ships in the background

It’s also my sweetheart Ellery’s birthday today! We’ve been so busy with the move we hadn’t given any thought to his birthday. And as his school said they preferred if he didn’t celebrate his birthday during the school Christmas party like he did last year, he didn’t even have a school celebration. I’m just thankful that he’s so cheerful. He’s been so happy this past couple of weeks, saying things like, “The whole world is celebrating my birthday!”

Of course we then remind him that it’s really Jesus’ birthday they are celebrating. Then he’d say the whole world is celebrating two boy’s birthdays :)

The tricky thing about his birthday being on Christmas is not so much that his birthday gets overlooked, it’s that Jesus gets overlooked. Intellectually he knows what Christmas is really about. But he’s most excited about his birthday. And I can see why, given then all the other kids are really excited about their birthdays too.

Anyway, here’s hoping the day will go well tomorrow. That Christmas will be meaningful and will touch something inside our souls, and that Ellery will have a fun-filled birthday too.

Here’s wishing you a blessed Christmas too!

Leaving school yesterday with the Christmas hat he made

And totally unrelated to Ellery, this picture is just too cute (in my opinion) to not share!

 

 

Read Full Post »

Junior Claus

Christmas started early for us this year. We attended the opening show for Junior Claus and were treated to a charming story about the young Junior Claus who is Santa’s son. He tries to save Christmas from being ruined forever by Grumpo the greedy elf who took control of Santa’s workshop after Santa fell into a deep sleep due to the Belief-o-Meter falling to dangerously low levels.

It felt good listening to the Christmas songs piped into the theatre before the show started, and I thought it was especially important for our particular show since it was (and still is) a long way from Christmas. Perhaps that was why the Christmas buzz wasn’t quite filling the theatre as much as it could have. But I really believe it’ll get more and more ‘buzz-y’ as Christmas draws nearer. Kudos to the cast for giving their best to invoke the Spirit of Christmas at the start of November!

Dwayne Tan (who reminded me of the earnest Woody from Toy Story), put in a good effort at portraying Junior’s eagerness to make improvements to Santa’s workshop and his lack of belief in the Christmas magic. Junior tried to find practical and logical ways to do things instead of believing in the Christmas magic. It did feel abrupt when he suddenly did believe, but I suppose that has to do with the flow of the story. It was at the end when Junior spoke about what Christmas was really all about that I felt his conviction. That part was quite moving and I felt something stir inside me. I hope the kids felt it too.

Chipper the elf (Seong Hui Xuan) and Junior (Dwayne Tan) flying off to Singapore with Dasher (Benjamin Chow)

I loved Timothy Wan as Grumpo! He made Grumpo evil but endearing, and one of my favourite characters from the show. Grumpo’s plan to corner the toy market and force parents to pay ultra exhorbitant prices for gifts was just wicked and wonderfully innovative, and hopefully that never happens, ha!

But my favourite character has to be Pengy the penguin. Cheryl Tan again put in a fantastic performance. I remembered her from Rapunzel and she further impressed this time around by playing two characters with panache. The boys and I loved the talkative and ever-positive Pengy. Like really loved him. Like really really loved him (watch and you’ll know what I mean). The minute Pengy appeared, the entire show was lifted as Cheryl filled the stage with her presence. It was wonderful how she spoke and sang with different accents for the characters and threw herself into making them believable.

Junior and Pengy (Cheryl Tan)

One thing that would make the show even better, I thought, was if the music could be turned down a little, or the volume of the feed from the cast could be increased. It sometimes felt like the music was drowning out the voices of the cast members, particularly those who had voices that weren’t so strong. As a result, I thought it was sometimes difficult for the kids to catch the words of the songs.

The cast of Junior Claus

Overall, this is a fun-filled show to bring your kids to this holiday season, and will be a real treat as Christmas gets closer! Although the recommended age is 5 years and above, Ellery, who turns 4 on Christmas day, was able to follow the story and still remembers what was said in the show. I was so surprised to hear him say, two weeks on, that “you don’t have to understand, you just need to believe”. What an appropriate takeaway for Christmas.

Junior Claus is showing at the DBS Arts Centre until 14 Dec 2014. Tickets are available via the SISTIC website and hotline (63485555).

———————————————————————–

We received complementary tickets for the show. All opinions are my own.

Read Full Post »

Replay

We had a playdate with the Sngs, Cais, Esther and Roy three days after Ellery’s birthday.  This bunch of friends hadn’t been able to make it for Ellery’s birthday celebration a few days earlier since most of them were overseas, so it was a good chance to catch up with one another.

To keep prep to a minimum we just got tons of breakfast hawker fare from our trusty Redhill Market.  Everything from waffles, to pao, to chai tau kueh, to prata.  It was a bit of a deja vu feeling when the house got completely messed up with toys and filled with the chatter and laughter of children.  But I like it :)  Our cardboard mansion was much better utilised at this playdate too.  Ironically, the roof collapsed not because of the kids though, but because of an adult haha :)  The children brought in toys, more crayons and colouring sheets, and had a blast hiding in there.

The 3-roomer was well utilised too, to the point the doorways were starting to cave in.  Good.  That was the point of it all.  Build, use, throw.  The garang guni man was more than happy to take our stuff the next day.

A huge milestone took place that day too.  Ellery started walking!  He suddenly got up and did 5 steps at one go.  This was witnessed by all the Uncles and Aunties, and the little kids, so he got lots of applause for his efforts :)  But more on his walking in another post.

It was good fun to see the kids gettings along and playing well with one another.  We’re planning a trip out to Bandung to visit Joce and family in June.  Hopefully the holiday plans all work out!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Read Full Post »

Busy Christmas

Ellery spent his first birthday shuttling from place to place.  First church, then Aunty Evelyn’s house, then to Orchard to pick up a pink logcake that JC had requested for, and then off to Woodlands for a Christmas party.

Lots of playing and lots of attention.  You can’t go wrong with that combination on your birthday :)

Birthday hug

New shoes from Por Por & Kung Kung that they didn't realise made squeaking sounds until Ellery wore them :) Ellery was very amused and happily stomped his feet all the more.

Playing at the kids room in church

Asher happy with his balloon he got in church. Actually the balloon man had finished his shift, so I just asked for a long balloon and twisted it into a 'fish' myself. That's about the only thing I could think of making that might pass off as the actual animal!

At Aunty Evelyn's house. Getting some balloons of his own :)

Loving Jo Claire's ball pit tent

Like really loving it. Ellery couldn't stop crawling in and out of it. "Boh! Boh!"

JC and Asher learning how to pop champagne from Joe

Read Full Post »

Ellery’s Christmassy First

This is SUCH an overdue post!

Yes, I’m backdating it to the actual day as is my usual practice (I’m a bit OCD that way, I like knowing exactly which day things happened).  But this is one month overdue!!!

Gosh.

But moving on…

———————————————————————————————————————-

On top of celebrating Ellery’s birthday we thought it’d be a great opportunity catch up with friends and relatives, so many of which we hardly get a chance to meet with on a day-to-day basis. Afterall, Christmas is a time for such things isn’t it?  So the party ended up being quite big, and our house was filled to capacity.  Every space was occupied, and I think it got a little cramp at one point because the caterer arrived more than an hour late so our guests were lumped together!  We had organised it such that the kids party was in the morning and the relatives would arrive in the afternoon.  But as lunch came late, the morning and afternoon crowd were crowded together for a good hour or more!  Everyone was very polite and kind though.

Homemade Christmas mobile

Thankfully the food was good – we catered from Samy’s Curry – although a little too salty and spicy for some.  Maybe next year we’ll cater Northern Indian since that tends to be less spicy.  It was a toss-up between Samy’s and Curry Garden, and this year Samy’s fish cutlet edged out :)

Indian food for Christmas

The kids seemed happy enough and didn’t seem to mind the crowd.  I had prepared several play areas to entertain the little ones.  In the living room the kids could help themselves to Asher and Ellery’s toys.  I had also made two cardboard playhouses for the kids.  The first was a 3-room playhouse which I put in the boy’s bedroom.  I had intended for their room to be the role-playing area (dress up clothes, masak-masak, pretend food were left there).

The 3-room cardboard house

Kids playing in the house

The other was like a cardboard mansion, complete with chimney, flowerbox and shingles, which I placed in the common area outside our house.  I had planned for the kids to decorate the house as they pleased, but here I discovered an interesting thing.  When the house was just unadorned cardboard, children are happy to draw all over it (as Asher and my neighbours kids showed), but once I pasted white paper all over (the intention was for their scribblings to be more obvious), not a single kid drew on the house!  That was something totally unexpected.  I guess they are all too well trained – no drawing on walls!  The white paper made the house have white walls, and made the house look too ‘made-up’ to draw on.  Inside though they were happy to draw on the walls since no paper was pasted there!  That phenomenon was so interesting to me.

Ellery was quite happy to play alongside the other kids, and I think he knew something special was going on because that night before he went to sleep he kept sitting up and clapping with a HUGE smile on his face :)  I don’t know whether he was remembering people singing his birthday song, or he was just happy.  I’d like to think he felt it was a special day :)

"Ball" was his word of the day

He really liked the rocking horse we rented from the Toy Rental Club

To mark the uniqueness of his birthday, we got log cakes instead of regular cakes as his birthday cake.  One for the morning kid’s session, and one for the relatives.  We thought it’d be fun for the kids to eat log cake too :)

Chocolate log cake for the kid's party

Hazelnut log for the adults

Thinking back on Ellery’s birthday, though, there are several things I would have done differently.  First, I would have given more thought to what he was wearing!  It was only on the day itself that I picked out something, and it was fairly random at that.  For some reason I thought he should wear something new that day, something not handed down, and had on hand just 2 t-shirt choices.  I let him pick, and he chose the t-shirt with colourful pictures of ice-cream.  I think I should have dressed him better since he was the birthday boy, something with a collar :)  Now everytime I put something on him that I like I keep thinking, shucks, I should have let him wear that on his birthday.  Not that I didn’t like his t-shirt, but it wasn’t dressed up enough I think :)  I guess with him I don’t dress him up as much as I did Asher.  Partly cos he’s usually doing casual things with me so hand-me-downs and casual t-shirts are more comfortable.  I don’t know, for some reason I really didn’t give it much thought.  I think I was more preoccupied with preparing the cardboard houses, doing up the handmade decor, etc.

I would also have asked someone to help take photos!  My camera, the Nikon Coolpix S9100 is really horrid.  Half the pictures are blurry.  We had bought it on the spur of the moment cos our previous camera was spoilt.  But I think I should have looked harder.  Beside the quality of pictures, I also simply didn’t have the capacity to take nice pics.  I was quite busy entertaining guests, checking on the arrival of food, getting other food prepared in the meantime for the kids, playing with the kids, etc.  But I’ve no regrets on that too since I was enjoying the moment.  I really liked catching up with friends, and watching the kids play.  I guess photos are really secondary, when it comes down to it.  That said, anyone with nice pics from that day please send to me! :O)

The last thing, though unlikely to change, is to have a bigger house haha!  I liked having the house be so bustling with people but it really would be more comfortable with more space!

All in all, I think it went well though :)

————————————————————————————————————————

Ellery, my dear boy, Mummy loves you no end!  I think there hasn’t been a day since you were born that I don’t say, “You are so cute!!  I cannot take it!!”  Of course, parents are intrinsically biased.  I love looking into your big eyes, I love when you give your megawatt smile that looks like it’s going to burst from your face, I love how chubby you are, how you like to pat people on the shoulder when they carry you as if you are saying “good job!”.  You are so nice to carry cos you’re filled out :)  But you are mighty heavy!  From quite early on I could not bring you out without using the Ergo.  When you choose to be wiggly you can be quite hard to hang on to because you are so strong.  You may be chubby but it’s not flabby at all!  You’re one tough little boy.

The two words I hear the most when people talk about you is “cheerful” and “big” :)  You have really turned out to be a cheerful boy, living up to your name!  You do have a temper though, which you showed towards the end of your first year.  If your toy gets snatched or you don’t get your way you can really cry.  Yes, you are macho and you have big lungs.

You are fearless, which can be quite alarming for me.  But it’s also refreshing since your brother can be quite cautious.  I hope the two of you will influence each other positively :)

Besides our house, the other place you see all the time is Asher’s school.  All the teachers and his classmates know you.  When we arrive in the morning it’s, “Hello Asher!  Hello Ellery!”.  You have a big fan club in his class, and your biggest fans are the girls.  Oh, how they pat you and kiss you and hug you!  Sometimes you trigger funny questions from his classmates like, “Aunty, how come Ellery doesn’t want to talk to me?” :)))  Now, you are so comfortable with them you’re as good as part of his class.  Asher’s teacher, Ms F, also adores you since you and her son are just 3 days apart.  You like her very much and often ask her to carry you.

You’ve been saying quite a few words like “ball”, “bir” (bird), “mama”, “deh” (daddy), “tar” (star), among others.  You moo when you hear the word cow or see a cow, you go baa when you see a sheep or hear the word sheep, and you say woof to the dog as well :)  It’s very cute :)

As for toys, you really like cars.  You’ll take cars and zoom around the living room making a ‘vroom’ sound.  Actually any toy with wheels you’ll do that.  And you’ve taken to dinosaurs too.  Yes, that’s one of the first words you said, “di!” for dinosaur, now progressing to “di-nor-nor”.  You “rah!!” like Asher, complete with the pretend claws.  Will I end up with two dino maniacs?

In the playground your absolute favorite part is the slide.  You’d go up and down all day long if I didn’t drag you away.  The other thing you enjoy is the steering wheel.

Contrary to everyone’s expectation you didn’t walk by your first birthday.  But I suspect you were trying to prove you independence and prove everyone wrong huh? :)

You and Asher play really well together and I’m so happy I have you two boys.  The instant you see Asher in the morning you light up and give the hugest grin, which Asher immediately reciprocates :)  What a nice way to wake up :)

You may be my second boy, and a lot of people ask me if I wish I had a girl (and there was even someone who said it would be nice if you had been a girl), or ask if I will be trying for a girl, but Ellery, always know that Mummy loves you so very much.  You are special, you are unique, you are irreplaceable.  Mummy and Daddy love you lots, but more than that, God loves you!  *muak*

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Read Full Post »

Raaahh! Christmas is Coming!

We brought out our little tree since Christmas is fast approaching.  Actually Asher was the one who kept asking us to take it out cos he wanted to decorate it.  Besides the pegs that we decorated it with last year, guess what he decorated it with?  See the pics below…

My Christmas Baby :)

Decorating the tree with....

Dinosaurs!!!

Yep...it's a dino Christmas around here

Two fossil dinos admiring Asher's work

It’s dynamic deco though.  He takes them out everyday, plays with them, then puts them back to sleep on the tree.  So everyday our tree looks a little different.  Then one day it went eco.  He took small empty boxes lying around the house and put them in the tree.  So yeah…who knows what is going to be on the tree tomorrow?

Read Full Post »

Ellery-Jude

Ellery-Jude [Edit 2 Oct 2021: Removed full name for his privacy] arrived at 1.33 am on Christmas Day :) No wonder Asher kept wavering on his answer to the question “when will Ellery come out?”. He kept switching between ‘before Christmas’ and ‘after Christmas’… that’s cos Ellery arrived on Christmas! Maybe that boy knows what he’s talking about haha.

It was a fairly easy delivery. Had spent the late morning with Jon walking around ION, the afternoon with Asher, and the evening with Jon again grabbing a cup of Spinelli’s Christmas blend, the gingerbread latte, which is fabulous. The contractions were frequent but not painful. But given all the (horror) stories I heard from friends and neighbours about their quick second deliveries (at home, in the car…), we decided not to risk it and head to the hospital anyway around 11pm. Just as well, since it wasn’t too long more before Ellery decided to show up.

Christmas romper for Ellery (well, actually it was Asher’s but it fits him and the occasion :) )

Christmas romper for Ellery (well, actually it was Asher's but it fits him and the occasion :) )

We wanted to find a name that had a similar meaning to Asher, which means ‘happy and blessed’. Ellery means ‘cheerful’, while Jude means ‘the praised one’, although that praised one refers to God. How apt, since being born on Christmas really points to the birth of Jesus! James and Jude are both books of the bible, so both Asher and Ellery can draw on the principles from those books. And Jude is also the brother of James. I like the synergy in their names :) What will we do if we ever have a third boy??

We had actually come across the name ‘Ellery’ very early on in my pregnancy, and it was the first name that caught our fancy. And in that same sitting, we came up with Ellery-Jude. But it seemed to good to be true, or too soon to be true, that we had found the name we liked. But well, it seems we had!

The four of us

The four of us

Can’t not have a picture with the Christmas tree can we?

Can't not have a picture with the Christmas tree can we?

Ellery was actually the first baby born on Christmas at Thomas Medical Centre, and they gave us a hamper to congratulate us! We didn’t even know that they gave out hampers for such things!

Ellery’s first prize!

Ellery's first prize!

Asher’s taken very well to Ellery so far. When he comes home from school he asks to see Ellery; he includes Ellery in his play, etc. But you can see that Asher does feel the difference in attention from me. Cos I’m breastfeeding, I necessarily have to spend quite a bit of time carrying Ellery. But still, he seems to have come to terms with that and doesn’t mind that I carry Ellery, as long as I still sit close to him, and talk/play with him.

We had in the previous few months read in a story about how a boy woke his little sister by stroking her ear when she fell asleep while nursing. Asher found it very funny and we often talked about how he could do that with Ellery :)

Carrying Ellery and stroking his ear.

Carrying Ellery and stroking his ear.

Boys napping together

Boys napping together

I’m glad that we’ve fallen back into the old bedtime routine, so Asher feels more settled. And it really helps that he’s settled very well in school too.

Lots more to update, but I’m gonna catch up on sleep first!

Read Full Post »

Rambling

I think I may never get around to updating everything, so I’ll just ramble off some of the things that have been happening in the last couple of weeks.

We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by running some errands and doing Christmas shopping.  Our aim was to finish all our shopping before I deliver.  It may be an everyday thing for a lot of people, but having a whole day to hang out, just the two of us, is something Jon and I don’t get to do that often.  It turned out that our anniversary took on an ‘old school’ theme by accident.  It started with lunch at Wishbone, a restaurant that’s been around since I was a little girl.  My Mum had a cooked food stall opposite, and between plucking tao gay and picking tau suan, my brother and I would hop over to buy ice-cream from Happy Kappy, their dessert arm. 

Dinner was at Shashlik, a Russian restaurant at Far East Shopping Centre.  It’s a place with special meaning for us cos Jon once brought me there for a surprise dinner.  It was one of those times that he really really managed to surprise me :)  Things haven’t changed at all in the intervening nine years.  The place looks the same, and the food was just as good.  The Borsch was heavenly and the Shashlik, of course, was great too.  As for dessert, we just couldn’t resist ordering the ever indulgent baked Alaska.  How things have changed for us personally though.  We’re now married with one kid, and one more on the way!

Day 2 of our wedding anniversay (our wedding was spread over 2 days, so we have an excuse to celebrate more!), we had lunch at the chicken rice stall on the top floor of Far East Plaza – another old school joint.  Somewhere we both went to as students. 

For me it felt like we were dating all over again, and it was just sweet and romantic in an everyday, ordinary way :)

Now that we’re both on leave too, we’ve been settling stuff in the day while Asher’s at school.  We haven’t had so many afternoons out together since we were students!  So we caught Narnia, and I’m hoping to catch the sneak of Gulliver’s Travels tomorrow.

As for Asher, he’s settled very well into his new school.  Although initially he’d protest a bit when I left, now he walks off to join his friends and blows us kisses as we head off :)  He always seems to happy when we pick him up, and I love how he runs to us to greet us with a big big hug :)  Things really took a turn for the better when Jon started dropping off and picking up Asher together with me.  I think that helped him adjust more quickly.  I was worried that if I continued to drop/pick Asher alone, when Baby comes Asher would feel abandoned or neglected if I suddenly stopped sending him to school.  So these last 2 weeks we’ve been doing it together, and it has come to the point where Asher’s ok even if Jon picked him up by himself. 

Jon’s been more hands on these last two weeks at home, and that has helped me lots, and is great for Asher.  From helping with laundry to bathing Asher when I need a rest.  Asher’s now even closer to Jon, and it’s evidenced by requests from Asher for Daddy to read to him, even though storytime is usually done by Mummy.  I’m really happy to see them bonding :)

Asher’s also eating SO much better.  I was reading up on picky eating sometime last month, and found that kids who are not pressured to eat end up getting all the nutrients they need anyway.  I think that perhaps in my anxiety about his weight loss and his poor food in-take, I was unconsciously making meal times stressful for him.  I decided to let go, to not press for him to “take another bite”, to just offer him a wide variety of healthy options and let him pick when he wants to eat from that selection.  I decided to let him be in charge of his intake, afterall they say breastfed kids know how to regulate their food intake well.  And the results were quick and satisfying.  Within a day or two he was eating more, and he started drinking milk again (yes, he had rejected even that!  At it’s worst, he could go an entire day with less than 200ml of milk and just 2 tablespoons of rice!).  He now generally eats heartily, even though there are some meals where he just picks at the food.  But that’s ok.  I’ve come to be very zen about it, especially cos I now adopt the mindset that it’s just one of many meals in a week.  He’s still more of a vegetarian/fruitarian, not liking to eat meat that much, but I’ve found a pretty decent list of almost full-proof food that he’ll take, some of these he ate even during his picky phase.  Some things are, well, fast-food, but I’ve also come to think that if he will eat it, let him be.  It’s still food afterall.  At home offer him the healthier stuff, outside, close one eye. 

So here’s the list: all fruits, veg (esp carrots and corn), my bolognaise sauce, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, egg tofu, rice (esp if he helped to cook it), roti prata, tortillas, eggs (in one form or another – but you must give it to him in the form he wants or he won’t eat it), and the KFC breakfast platter (he esp likes the biscuits).  Besides these, the cuisine that seems to work almost all the time is Indian food.  So far, he has without fail (to my memory at least) eaten well whenever we have Indian food.  Roti prata is one case in point.  He will happily munch on egg prata, and sometimes even dips it into the curry.  He loves briyani rice, he eats dahl curry, has munched up palak paneer (a mild spinach and cheese curry) with gusto, likes vegetable korma, eats dosai and apun jala (pancakes which look like spider webs), and enjoys papadum no end.  I think he likes their stronger flavours, and I’m not surprised, given how much Indian and Malay food I ate when I was pregnant and breastfeeding.

So it was a very happy Selena tonight as we left Samy’s curry.  He ate very well, eating half a good sized piece of dry curried fish (he actually ate fish without me having to sneak it in!), dahl with briyani, papadum, and a cup of mixed fruit (this is something I didn’t know they offered until today!).  I have always liked going to Samy’s curry, and we’ve brought him there before, but tonight I left thinking, “I love Samy’s!”.  The staff are always so friendly to him, saying hi as they walk by.  He likes having his own banana leaf to eat off, free flow of papadum and dahl, fab lime juice, and now there’s  even fruits to end the meal!!  And for the parents – great teh tarik too :) 

We weighed him tonight, and I was very surprised and happy to see that he’s finally broken 12!  He’s 12.4 kg!!  What a vast improvement from a month ago when he fell back into the 10 range! 

So I’m very very happy to see Asher happy at home, at school, at meals.  He’s really been a jolly fellow these few weeks with Mummy and Daddy being available to him.  I hope it keeps up when Baby comes, and when Jon goes back to work. 

Speaking of Baby, we’ve decided on the name already, but we’ll keep it under wraps until he arrives.  Asher’s been refering to Baby by his name for the last several months, and I suppose we can’t change it now else he’d be so confused when Baby is introduced with a different name.  Anyway, it’s a name we like very much, and in fact was the first name we considered many many months ago when I was about 3-4 months pregnant.  We deliberated several others in the last few months, but nothing quite sat as well with us. Anyway, I’ll elaborate more on the name when Baby arrives.

Asher’s been very sweet though.  He talks about Baby as part of the family.  A few days ago when playing with blocks he built a house for Baby.  He has also in his new school played with a baby doll, and called it by Baby’s name.  He carried the doll, brought it for a stroll around the room in a stroller, fed him milk, and included him in storytime :)  (I’ve some pics, will see if I can upload when I move to a new site.)  He says that Baby loves him, and he loves Baby.  I just hope that this good feeling keeps up! 

I’ve been getting him prepared for the arrival of the little one.  Asher chose to give a toy to Baby, and he’s picked out which toy.  He knows I’m going to be in hospital for two days, and he’ll stay with Por Por.  He knows it tiring to deliver and Mummy might be sleeping a lot after.  And the most recent piece of info I’ve introduced is that Mummy doesn’t know when Baby is coming.  Only God/Jesus knows.  I realised I had to tell him this last piece of info too in case Baby comes in the middle of the night and we’re not around in the morning when he wakes up!  Right now Asher’s not the most reliable predictor of when Baby will come.  Every time I ask him whether Baby is coming before or after Christmas the answer changes :)   

And as for Christmas, I can’t wait! :)  Where will I be celebrating it?  At home?  At a friend’s house?  In hospital?  Let’s just see how it goes!

Read Full Post »