First day of maternity leave

Today is my first official day off to 'rest' before the arrival of the little princess :)  But, sad as it sounds, I seem to have lost the ability to relax and chill.  There are quite a lot of things to do though.  Apart from getting all the baby shopping things done and ready, on top priority is to get my thesis completed and out of the way!!  Otherwise, the MD may not happen :)  There's only this week as it's the school holidays again next week for 3 weeks, and I do want to spend as much time as I can with Isaac before I have to split my time. 

Why do chefs wear a hat?

Isaac wanted to play 'masak masak' today and be the chef.  He took the round plastic bin that we stored the pieces in and put it on his head and said 'Chefs need to wear a hat so that when they bend down to cook their hair won't get burnt by the fire.  They also need gloves so that the fire will not burn their hands'.  Hmmm.. was it not for hygienic reasons?  Wonder who he asked the 'why' question to.  

Blizzard and snow end of March??!!

Totally unexpected heavy snow when it's supposed to be spring time soon.  The timing was perfect though as it was the weekend.  Despite the wind and cold, we all headed for Camphill for a morning of sledging (first time in Liverpool).  Everybody (except me of course) had a go on the sledge downhill!! Yes, even mummy :) Isaac went downhill at least 6 times.  He would have gone many more times but was unfortunately limited by the long hike back uphill afterwards.  Think Richard was really tired at the end too.

Snow at least 6 inches deep - Isaac could hardly walk

 

 

Isaac thought he was the expert and was trying to teach his popo to sledge

Isaac's developmental update

Richard and I totally depend on the nursery to teach you about writing, reading etc as there's just no time in the weekdays and find weekends not really the time to 'educate' you as that's when we have fun together.  So, hopefully during the few months that popo and gong gong are here, you'll learn a few more things :)

Learning to write your name

 Well, we think you're doing not too bad.  You can just about write your name, and learning phonics and trying to read.  While in the car looking out of the window or watching TV, you will suddenly shout out 'Mummy, B.. 'buh, 'buh'' and some words you say, you will suddenly stop midsentence and start 'phonicing'.  You can also undress and dress yourself (when the clothes are not too tight), learning to put on shoes and socks, and love buttoning and unbuttoning.  This is to the extent of you wanting to wear everything with buttons or zips :)  

There's a few TV programmes that you really like, and which we quite enjoy too :)  Top of the lists are '64 Zoo Lane', 'Mickey mouse clubhouse', 'Mike the Knight', 'Octonauts' (we actually learn from this too), and 'Tree-fu Tom'.  Like all kids this generation, you also LOVE the iPhone and iPad, and play lots of games on it.  Your favourite is 'Jetpack'.  We were quite impressed at how you actually learnt to play this game all by yourself.  You know that you can only use the iPad in the weekends though, and we plan to stick by this for as long as possible. 

Following the Tree-fu Tom's spell pose

 

Happy birthday Mummy!

We celebrated my mum's birthday.  Nothing extravagant but it's really nice to be able to spend this special time with her and papa (quite rare and difficult to coincide birthdays for visits here).

Nostalgic - 36 weeks

I started to unpack all of Isaac's old clothes, toys and things he used as a baby (eg: steriliser, carseat, pram) over the last 2 weekends in preparation for the little girl's arrival.  It was really nostalgic going through all the sleepsuits that he wore as a tiny baby and toys that he played with.  Isaac actually recognised some of them and said 'I've seen them in the pictures before', or 'that is mine'.  It was also a good clear-out session of things from the garage as I packed away all the boyish things to give away.  Then, the washing began.  Thank God for parents who have arrived :)

Different colour theme this time round

Last weekend, Isaac graduated to his new single bed (dinosaur themed set as that's his craze now), while the cotbed was reassembled into a baby ready cotbed  again.  There was also a rearrangement of Isaac's room to fit the baby's cupboard for clothes.  Yes, totally DIY weekend for Richard :)

Quite happy to sleep in it but still prefers to run into our bed in the early hours of the morning

All in place if baby decides to come early - Isaac did still try to climb in and sleep in it coz it's in our room :)

At night, I started going through previous blog inputs from 4 weeks before Isaac was born and could not stop reading.  It brought tears to my eyes recalling Isaac's first year (well, maybe I'm more emotional now with hormones surging ;))

The period of 'why, where, how'

You are definitely at a stage of development where you need and want to know about everything!!  You ask 'why or how' in every other sentence that you speak. Some examples:

'Why is the water coming out from there?'
'Why is the aeroplane flying in the sky?'
'Why is baby kicking in your tummy?'
'How do I make this?'
 Most of the time is 'Why mummy, WHY?'

One of the awkward one was 'Mummy, where is baby going to come out from?' We somehow managed to distract you and didn't have to give an explanation. 

Mother's Day

Portrait of me from Isaac - where are my glasses?

Mother's Day was on the 10th of March here.  The first school (nursery, reception and Yr 1) prepared a mother's day concert.  I was really impressed at how you all memorised the words to 4 songs.  You participated very well this time and joined in the singing.  Well done to you all and the teachers!! We even got daffodils :)

 

I am so happy and proud to be your mummy, and looking forward to also be a mummy to our little girl arriving next month.  It's definitely worth all the hard work and effort, and pray that God will continue to give us (Richard and I) wisdom and strength to be the best parents we can be.  

Thank you also to my mummy who has brought me up to who and where I am today!!      

Disney on Ice

We went to watch our first show - Disney on Ice.  Although we bought the tickets a few months ago, this was our bribe to get you to behave in the week after the half-term break.

Characters that you know from Disney are Mickey, Minnie, Donald, etc, all learnt after the Disneyland holiday and so you were really excited in the beginning of the show.  Then, there was a whole segment of all the different princesses with their prince in pairs, doing lots of ice skating, where you were truly bored as you had no idea who they were.  Well, being a boy, I never really introduced you to Belle, Cinderella or Snow White etc, so maybe it was my fault.  Thank God the show ended with 'Toy story' (one of your fabourites) and 'Christmas season' with all the traditional Disney characters again :) It was worth the money, but certainly not ready for the movies yet as you still got restless just before the break

Aftermath of half term

There's normally a few days of adjustment after a holiday period but we didn't expect that from just a half term week holiday.  The week after we returned from London was really difficult.  You refused to wake up, then fussed and didn't want to go to school, and in the evening didn't want to shower or sleep at night.  It was a terrible cycle of tantrums and crying and both Richard and ! were so tired!!!  Hopefully you will get used to the idea of term breaks and then going back to school as these breaks happen every 2-3 months.

Half term in London

Can't believe 1 month flew by and just have not found the time to update.  You had your first half term holiday for a week, and we took the opportunity to go to London (while Richard had to be in Cambridge for the week) and also meet with 'Gong gong' and 'popo' as they arrive to help and to 'welcome' baby Kia 2 when she decides to come. We went to Chessington zoo, played with kites, badminton, bowled, visited the natural history museum, ate in a 2-star Michelin restaurant for the first time and ate lots!!  EVERYTHING was packed because of the school holidays, which will now make us think twice about going anywhere during half terms.

Chessington Zoo - queued for about 45 minutes to get a car parking space which was 20 mins walk away

In the water tub ride where we all got splashed

There was a day of good weather and thank God we took that opportunity to play with the kites that was brought from Malaysia.  Sam Yi and Gong gong had as much fun as you :)  I was so excited seeing you fly the kite!!  The rest of our time in London was freezing cold and raining.

 

Very well behaved in 'The Ledbury'

You happily carried a 6lb ball around not realising the implications if that fell on your feet!!

Queued for an hour plus to get into the natural history museum, and then another hour to watch the dinosaurs

 Being a dinosaur - You were however terrified of the T-rex model which moved and roared