Crying 'wolf'

I've not formally or whole-heartedly tried to potty train you yet, but have been telling you what 'poo-poo' and 'wee-wee' are, which you understand. We have actually been quite successful with 'poo-poo', as we have not needed to clean dirty nappies much anymore, but is nowhere near the 'wee-wee' yet.

Unfortunately, you have also learnt that when you say 'poo-poo', you get my immediate attention, which you take advantage of. For example, one morning, I tried to get a few more minutes of sleep and asked you to play with your cars. After a while, you said 'mummy, poo-poo', and of course I got up to get you on the 'throne'. But, after a short while (and no poo), you cheekily said 'no more poo-poo, finished' and then wanted to get off.

However, you took it to another level over the weekend by saying 'mummy, poo-poo' 3 times while eating in a restaurant. After being 'cheated' twice (to toilet, undressed, sat a while, then wanting to get off), I was quite irritated, as knew you 'abused' this command to wander around. So, with the 3rd 'mummy, poo-poo', we ignored and distracted you. Then when home and during your bath, this happened:

You: Mummy, poo-poo
Me: Again? Isaac, don't bluff, finish bathing first..
Sam-yi: NNNOOOOOOooooo!!! (within seconds)

Yes, you 'pooed' into your bath water!!! A lot of it in seconds.. Ming and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, it was hilarious. How in the world am I to toilet train you? How do I know when it is real, and when it is an excuse to get attention? Thankfully you don't 'abuse' it very often.

Learning to jump

Another milestone, but not perfected yet.

Tired after all the exercise

Little dare devil?

You LOVE slides. But, I was a little surprised that you kept asking to go on the giant slide when we were at a family day last weekend. I thought you would be scared of it. You squeeled in delight and wanted to go on it again and again. After the 3rd or 4th time, I got too tired climbing up. If only we could be lifted up, we would have been on it endlessly. I enjoyed it too.

Own bed

This is written very much in retrospect. Moving home gave us the perfect opportunity to move you to your own room. However, it was tougher than I thought.

We started by continuing with the cotbed which you were used to but ended up with a mattress by it as your daddy and I got too tired running up and down the corridor in the middle of the night as you occasionally awoke hourly. When you realised that we were sometimes actually sleeping on the mattress, you refused to sleep in your cot, and wanted to sleep on the floor with us. Hence, the decision to remove the cot-sides. There's still the mattress on the floor (with lined pillows just in case you roll off), but at least we could squeeze in the bed with you to put you to sleep, and you learnt to sleep on the bed. The whole process of sleepless nights took about 2 months. Thankfully, you are now settled in your own room, in your own bed and sleeps through the night again. I still do sometimes find you on the floor (mattress) in the morning, but you 'fall' without waking up which is fine :)

Getting fussy

It has been so fun lately hearing you learn to try converse and getting your thoughts across. However, as you grow older, you're also becoming more demanding, and wanting your way. Some examples:

- wanting to choose your own clothes (can be a battle in the mornings)

- refusing to wear certain shoes (we have to hide the sandles)

- eating only the 'meat' and not wanting the potatoes or rice (even nursery commented that you don't eat like you usually do)

- refusing to bathe or sleep (putting you to sleep can take up to 2 hours!!)

But overall, it's a joy.

New toys

After talking to a few friends with kids, we realised that you actually do not have many toys. You have outgrown a lot of your 'baby toys' now. So, in the last months, we bought you a drum set, a train set, and many cars (to replace the lost bus, which we can't find in the shops).

You were never really impressed by the train. The train track has however become your car track and you love it

Errmm.. should this be your toy?

Bus 'accident' in Stockholm

Stockholm, Sweden - I never knew it was surrounded by water and consists of many islands

We had our first holiday away as a family (excluding going to Malaysia) in Stockholm a few weeks ago. It was unexpectedly and exceptionally hot!! You kept saying 'hot, mummy', 'hot, mummy', 'no more hot' intermittently when walking along. Poor you, it was probably hotter than Malaysia, without air conditioning!! It was a different holiday as places we visited had to be 'child friendly'. So, we went to the world's oldest open museum, Skansen, with a zoo, and the 'hop-on-hop-off' boat trip. Think you enjoyed most of it. Thank God for the new pram, as we would not have survived without one :) I have to say, everything was so expensive, and the food was not to die for. For the first time, you had 'outside food' 5 days in a row. Don't think you complained as it was sushi, nuggets, salmon, chips, and it probably all tasted very good with the salt and 'ajinomoto'.

'Hot, hot'

The heart-wrenching moment of the trip was when you lost your favourite bus. We flew with Ryanair, and as there were no allocated seats, we half ran with the others to the plane to make sure we could get seats together (full flight). You were holding on to both your car and bus while we were walking. We were on the plane at our seats when I heard you say 'oh-oh, no more bai (bus), drop, hand', a few times, while pointing to your hands. You may have been saying '0h-oh' all the way but I didn't hear. Then, you cried, 'no more bai'. Even I felt sad, while I tried to explain that it is lost, and we'll try to get you a new one. We tried to look for it, but with no success. Oh well, like your daddy said, it was a 'teaching moment'. Unfortunately, I don't even have a picture of the bus to put up for memory :) (ooppss, did find a few when sorting out photos)

The fateful bus

Our only family photo - outside the famous vasa museum (of course we didn't go in)

The only 'cool' day

The world's oldest open air museum

You obviously preferred the big horse more than the small horse

Hop-on, hop-off boat sightseeing tour

First friends in UK

It was good to have our longest friends in the UK, visit us all the way from Dundee. It seems surreal that this may be the last time we see each other in UK. As usual, you are very very happy when there are visitors, especially if they are children. Similarly, this means that there were no longer nice dinners, and chatting the night away like student days. Rather, we had to think of places to go to keep you all entertained. So, we all went to Farmer Ted's. To be honest, I think the adults had a good time too, although the weather could have been better.

Our birthdays

Both our birthdays came and went quietly. I suppose not many people celebrate birthdays after 30?

During mine, Richard's pastor and husband from Malaysia were visiting us, and volunteered to babysit, but celebrating without you just didn't feel right. So, we all went out for a nice Italian meal (another italian birthday ;)). For Richard's, we went out for his favourite food, Sushi (I forgot the camera). Are a mixture of us, as you love pasta and sushi, or do you just love ALL food? ;)