Self feeding

You have actually become quite good at aiming food into your mouth with a spoon or fork.

However, I do not know why you refuse to feed yourself dinner. You will vigourously shake your head when I ask you to 'put your mum-mum into your mouth' during dinner time as you much rather use the spoon to play with the food. It is entirely different when it comes to your favourite yogurt as you can self feed the whole tub yourself. HHmmm.. are you lazy as you know I will feed you?

My little eskimo

This is how you dress for nursery everyday. Of course your inside shirts get changed :)

Bout of exercise in winter

A friend mentioned tiring you out by 'letting you loose' in the malls. Coincidentally, that was exactly what I did on Sunday. I went to Costco (hypermarket) with some church friends for lunch and to get some essentials in bulk (yes, like your nappies). I let you out from your pram and you 'ran' up and down the aisle with glee.

Washing hands

I've been trying to teach you to wash your hands after a meal. As am writing this, just thought maybe I should be teaching you to wash hands before meals too :) As expected, you LOVED the water. So much so that if I accidentally leave the stool in front of the basin, you'll be on it when I'm not looking, hoping to 'play water' again, but thankfully you still can't reach the taps.

For the sake of recording your 'growing up', you are refusing to brush your teeth over the past few days. Maybe it's the teething process??

New food

I tried cooking dinner for all and it worked. You ate the rice with soup (ABC soup so had all the ingredients you were familiar with) and seemed to really enjoy it.

In another meal, you also amazed us by managing to choose the roast potato over the scampi from your high chair. You kept shaking your head when we passed you the scampi. Both the scampi and potato looked similar to us :)

Winter is here

It was -5 degrees this morning when we left the house for church, and it is still only the month of November. Unfortunately there was still no snow. So, no snowman yet, Isaac :) But, you had to wear 4 layers before leaving the house! This is the first time I wrapped you up so well. I think if you fell, you would have bounced from the amount of padding.


The wintery weather also meant staying at home the whole weekend. Thus, you were more restless than usual, and it did not help that your dada was on call. I had to keep thinking of ways to entertain you and it was both mentally and physically tiring. All full time moms out there - how do you do it???

Thank God I had bought some 'playdoh' after a recommendation by a friend. You were amused by how 'strips' came out with you pressing down and we played for about an hour. You also loved digging your fingers into the playdoh, so washing your nails was 'fun'. We may have to introduce a new activity every weekend if the weather doesn't change.

Developmental update

You finally started teething again!!! I can just see the tips of both the lower and upper right lateral incisors shining through :)

A friend mentioned I should be noting down words you can say or understand. So, here goes:
Words said:
- Dada, Dede, Baba (unfortunately nothing comprehensive and certainly NOT even mama :( )
Words/commands/songs understood and responds with action to:
- NO (like all kids, one of the first few words understood and now replies 'no' by vigourously shaking your head)
- Mama
- Come here
- Sit down
- Light
- Mummm-mummm (food)
- Milk
- Yoghurt
- Pao pao (after a meal)
- Bye-bye
- Flying kiss
- Kiss
- Hug
- Clap hands
- Shake head
- Head
- Nose
- Brush teeth
- Wash hands
- Bathing time
- Shoes
- Socks
- Jacket
- Trousers
- Book
- TV (this is really bad I suppose ;) your favourite is 'in the night garden')
- Row row row your boat
- Twinkle, twinkle little star
- The wheels on the bus
- This is the way the lady rides
(and hopefully the list grows)

You still have quite a short attention span and will not sit still for me to read to you, except before bed. You LOVE hammering, knocking blocks over and putting things in and out of a container, thus tidying your toys when I ask you to. You can also build a block of 3 and is learning to pull a 'pulling toy'. It's quite amusing as you don't really understand the concept yet and keep lifting the whole toy up. As always, you love music and always dance and move to it.

Well, am sure the words will come when you're ready :) I just thank God everyday for your laughter, and the smiles that you put on our faces everyday over the past 14 months.

Male bonding

It was another major milestone :) Probably for me more than anybody else. Yes, I left you with daddy for 48 hours while I went to London for a conference. It was the first time leaving you overnight!! Of course you both coped :) The only small hint that you missed me was waking up in the middle of the night the day I left, and crying for 40 minutes, and on the night that I arrived home, but only for 5 minutes while I cuddled you.. Maybe I was imaging it, but you were super hyper on Saturday, more than usual :) We did plan to enjoy some family time but alas, the washing machine chose to break down. What a waste of a saturday sorting that out.

My 'time away' made us realise how stressful it may be in a month's time when I return to clinicals, and I lose the flexibility of picking you up, and Richard having to rush for 6pm, like he did over the past 2 days. It will extra tricky during the late on-calls and nights. Thank God for a month to iron it out while my parents are here. We pray for strength and understanding colleagues.

Your love for food

A good indicator of your health has always been your appetite. I know you're really ill when nursery reports you don't 'eat all' for everything and you refuse dinner :)

Of late, you've become more choosy and do not really fancy your porridge anymore. You much prefer our food and will climb across your highchair table just to reach it. Even after you have finished your porridge, you somehow find space in your stomach to squeeze our 'junk' in. We've also relaxed more and will offer them to you but it's a little scary as your tummy looks as it's about to pop sometimes. For example, one evening, you finished your bowl of porridge, then had 4 pieces of potato wedges, 2 strips of chicken kiev, 2 pieces of orange, and 5oz of milk before you slept, all in the space of 2 hours.

I have to be more creative in my cooking, or maybe just let you eat our food, chopped into smaller pieces. You have been eating these food in nursery all these while I suppose?

Your first home cooked pasta meal

Finished a whole hard boiled egg for breakfast

Wolfing down the wedges after a full meal

Daily exercise

Thank God for a relatively long hallway that allows you to roam up and down. This is probably where all the food you eat goes to :)

(please mute this while you watch it)

Wacker Quacker Weekend

As a treat to us all after your week long illness, we decided to do something different and brought you on the Yellow Duckmarine, also known as the Wacker Quacker. This is an amphibian vehicle which drives on land and in water. It is one of the visitors' highlights and we can finally say we have been on it, after 6 years in Liverpool.

We really had a good day. We started with a full English breakfast as the morning tour was full. You were entertained by your favourites - breadsticks and a balloon, so, we ate in peace.
After your nap, we boarded the bus/boat. You were very excited and stood on my lap nearly the whole tour, holding on to the bar of the front seat, laughing/smiling, either looking outside or in front. It must be so much more fun compared to being strapped in your car seat. We learnt a few new things about Liverpool too. But, I thought it was a little overpriced. I suppose it's the novelty that makes it so popular.


Then, we went to the Tate Museum for some 'culture' :) It was of course shortened by your ability to 'make your presence known' and left before we got asked to. We then had a take-away for dinner. It'll be good to do something special like this about once a month. Totally takes away the mundanity, and something to look forward to.

Adult Food

Thank God you have totally recovered, and is back to your usual self and enjoying food again :) I can also enjoy my sleep too.

MMR/Hib/MenC/PCV

These were the vaccines you were given all at once, and it made you so ill. You have not been this ill since catching the 'viruses' when you first started nursery about 6 months ago. You ran a high fever, could not keep food down, refused to eat and was coughing/sniffling all the time. Thank God you were still quite good natured, but stuck to me like glue. At night, you woke up every hour or so and it brought back haunting memories of the past when you woke 4-5x a night.

Thankfully you are nearly fully recovered today, but have broke out in a nasty rash. Still, you did not eat normally. I wonder if you are becoming more fussy with your porridge? Or is your apetite taking its own time in returning to normal? I just pray that you will be back to your normal self soon.