Happy New Year 2009

Happy New Year 2009!
May the coming year bring good fortune, good health and happiness to everyone.

Sean had no voice for several days. I think he had a throat infection. We wanted to bring Sean to Dr kwan, his doctor, but it's been Christmas, the weekends, and the another public holiday. By the time, the doctor's clinic was open, Sean was alright.

But on the day Sean was alright, Sam fell sick, and then the next day, it was me. I think I got an ear infection as well. I was terribly tired the whole day. But thank goodness, we're all better in the evening, after lots of doses of Pei Pa Koa, 100Plus and water.

One thing that amazed me though. Sean was terribly good when he was sick. He still had lots of energy and was driving around in his car round and round the living room as if he wasn't sick. You wouldn't know that he wasn't sick if he didn't have such an awful voice!

And of course it was harder to feed him. He runs away when we come with food. He lived on snacks the last few days. He was willing to eat anything that wasn't healthy for him, but when it comes to proper food, he just runs away!

Sam, of course, took it worst, moaning and groaning about how sick he was. As boys grow up to become men, their resilience to sickness totally drops! =P

Back to toys. ..... Yes, John. Sean plays just like you did. Totally destructive! I'm re-thinking my wisdom to buy those small legos. Maybe I should get Duplo size blocks for him. at least, it won't take me such a long time to put it back when he destroys them and ask me to put back together!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

We had a pig out on Christmas eve. As usual, we've invited the relatives to come for a christmas eve party with turkey, lamb roast, spaghetti bolognaise, mashed potato, fruit salad, garlic bread, noodles, cream puffs, and 2 cakes brought by the guests, chocolate and white macademia.

We were going to get Sean a box of Lego for his Christmas present, but I've found a china made lego that works as well as real Lego and asked the in-laws to join their Sean's Christmas budget with ours to get him the pseudo-Legos together so that he gets a whole set to play with.

We got him a hospital , ambulance, 2 race cars, an excavator and a Jet fighter plane. So he's been having a great time crashing his jet fighter to the hospital and crashing the cars and taking them apart. And of course, we've been fixing it every time he breaks them apart since he doesn't know how to do it yet. It can be troublesome fixing things over and over again, but he's having such a great time that he hasn't watch as much TV the last few days.

The one thing that has marred these few days is that Sean got laryngitis yesterday. He's been pointing to his neck the last few days, but I thought it was because he knocked his chin on the table. He woke up with no voice but still tries to talk and scream with it. He sounds really terrible, especially today.

I've given him cough mixture and honey water. Does anyone have a better idea of what to give him? Should I bring him to see a doctor for laryngitis?

Craft: How to make a Haloween Basket

Halloween Basket

This post should have been done before Halloween, but I didn't have the time then. Anyway, the idea can be used for any other types of baskets, for example, Easter baskets or flower baskets. I'm planning to make a flower basket for Mary's wedding this way. I'll post up the picture when I make it next year.

Materials:
Crepe papers, plastic container, scotch tape, double sided tapes, anything soft for padding, scissors, color papers, ribbon.

Instructions:
1. Cut crepe paper according to the size of the plastic container you are using. Cut enough so that it can be folded in. Stick padding around the side of the container to make it look chubbier.
2. Gather the crepe paper on a strip of scotch tape to make it crinkled. Make sure you leave sone tape un-covered by the crepe paper.
3. Stick the crinkled crepe paper all around the inside of the plastic container.
4. Cut a round piece of crepe paper and stick to the inner bottom of the container with double sided tape.
5. Fold over the crinkled crepe paper and stick the rest on the outer base of the container.
6. Stick the ribbon handle with double sided tape.
7. Cut leaves from green crepe paper. Line the inside of the container with double sided tape and paste the leaves neatly.

Other decorations:
Face:
Cut little triangles for eyes and nose, and a smile from black paper. Stick with glue or double sided tape.

Bat:
Draw a bat on hard black paper. Stick on green circles for eyes and draw 2 dots for eyes. Cut it out and stick on the ribbon.

Witch:
Cut the witch face from green paper, witch hat fro black paper. Cut a small piece of red crepe paper and cut tiny strips, leaving the top uncut. Crinkle the red paper to make hair and stick on the head. Stick the hat on top. Draw the face and mouth.

The instructions are not that detailed but I hope the pictures help. Click on the picture to get a clearer image. =D
Happy Crafting!

Sean 27 month - Stubborn

Despite still refusing to speak much, Sean's growth has been bringing much joy and despair to us. =D Why do I say that?

Joy... because he can be really charming when he wants to. He never used to respond when I said smile. Now he's full of goofy smiles and silly grins. Which is why he doesn't get punished very often.

Despair.. because he is so stubborn! His stubbornness seems to grow as he grows older.

Since he found the small plastic balls, he's been messing the whole house everyday. Sometimes I clean up, sometimes I leave it to the maid. But this can't go on forever.

This afternoon, we went down and he immediately went to the ball baskets and turned it upside down. He was so proud that he messed the living room. This was it! I told him to pick the balls up and he looked at me "innocently". As I kept repeating myself, his look became more and more stubborn. We came to a stand still. I punished him (sitting on chair), swatted his foot (which kicked the ball instead of picking up), and told him " No food, No TV, no toys, until he picked up all the balls". When he was still not responding. I asked " Are you comfortable on that chair?" He nodded, so I said " No chair!" and got him to sit on the floor, which of course made him cry harder.

Seriously, there weren't that many balls since I've already helped to put back some, but he just refused to pick them up. He preferred to cry his crocodile tears and still tried to sucker up his mummy. This went on for 1/2 hour, when he finally picked up a few balls and put them into the basket.

I could have saved myself a lot of energy repeating myself "Pick up the balls and put the into the basket" 50 times and did the clean up myself in less than 5 minutes. But I just felt that he has to learn to do it himself. It took a lot more energy to get him to do it though. =P

Updates for the last 2 months

I have been neglecting my blog for almost 2 months now. Things have been busy and I've been really lazy to blog. So now I'm just going to have to breeze through what's been happening the past 2 months.

October: Hallowen

I had 2 weeks of craft duties for Hallowen. It just so happened that I can make pinata, so I made the base of a gigantic spider pinata and a pumpkin pinata for the week before Halloween. Some of the mothers helped to decorate them during playgroup.

I was also busy making Sean's costume. If you read manga, you'll recognize hims as Luffy from One Piece. I sewed the jacket by hand and and it took a few days to make the hat! On Halloween itself, we made pumpkin baskets for the children to fill candies with.

We had a pot-luck Halloween party and the children hit the pinata until all the candies came out. They had a blast eating candies. That started Sean on sweets. The next morning he had 3 sweets for breakfast before I knew about it! I had to hide the rest of the sweets.




Early November

I have been busy with all my students' exams since September. All their exams seem to come one after another. It was after all end of the school year. What made it extra busy was helping my Form 5 student prepare for the SMP exam. I had to help her with last minute notes preparation because she just had so little time. Even then I had to leave her halfway because I've booked our trip back to Jakarta months before before I knew the exam timetable. and when we came back from Jakarta, she was still in the midst of exams.

Travel to Jakarta

This trip to Jakarta went a lot smoother than last year's trip. Sean had his own chair and behaved very well on the plane, except during the landing. His ears were in pain so he was crying all the way down. Nothing could help. Not breast feeding nor sweets. So I had to hugged him and hoped that the pain subsides soon.






Our first day in Jakarta was rather tiring though. We went straight to my parents' shop and had to wait for a long time before we could go home. It is a hardware store. He enjoyed himself running around, but being paranoid parents, we were watching Sean like a hawk the several hours we were there. So it was like " Don't touch that!" " Sit down!" "Stop that!" Totally exhausting.

Sean really enjoyed the visit this time. He got along quite well with his cousins (Fendi 9 and Frederick 6). They had a blast jumping on the beds until they cracked the wooden support beam of my bed! I also let them jumped around like crazy during the weekends. I didn't realize that they weren't encouraged to do so. Ooppss...=P




I combined my visit to my family with our friend, Yulius' wedding. His wedding was beautiful but unfortunately we couldn't stay for very long. Like many Indonesian weddings, it's cocktail style, which means there are no tables. They have buffet style food and the guests mingle around carrying plates and chit-chatting. Sean was crawling on all floors. I don't know why he suddenly thought it was really fun to crawl on all four, but we (Eny and us) decided to leave early and have pizza somewhere else, where Sean could be seated and we could eat in peace.

We also managed to meet up with Eny several times and caught up with her and her cute daughter Rena. Eny brought us to several places which on on our we would probably be too lazy to go to. The new malls are beautiful but food there was so expensive. What we paid a the up-class food court could have gotten us good food at restaurants here. We are such ulu people! =P

But...it's wonderful to meet up with friends you haven't seen for such a long time. I'm glad we got this opportunity to meet up! =D

We went to over to see my aunt and grandmother, but most of the time we stayed home. My objectives is just to catch up wit my family and the best time is just to go over to my parents' room to chat.

And then it was time to go back home. Eny gave Sean a cute little "Luigi" luggage bag, which he insisted to pull around. So he pulled his own diapers and snacks by himself. So cute! =D


Back in KL (late November)
The first few days back in KL were really hectic. My student was doing here Physics and Biology papers. So we concentrated on that. After that I thought I was going to have lots of free time because my students took a break from tuition for a few weeks. But YMCA called. They urgently needed an English teacher for their school holiday program. It was really last minute and I was given a few days to prepare for the week-long classes. It was only 1.5 hours everyday but the class consisted of students from 6 to 11 years old. So it was quite tricky to prepare.

Early December
Then Mary, Sam's younger sister came back with her fiance, David, to do wedding preparations. So that week was really packed with me teaching at YMCA in the afternoon ad running around with them helping them for their wedding preparations. Towards the end, Sam and Sean were really grumpy because I didn't really spend very much time with them. Oopppsss..Sean had been sorely neglected. Got to make it up to him. =P

Recent events
Things are getting back to normal now. Tuition has started again. We went to an early Christmas party at Margaret's house on Thursday morning, 11 Dec. Her house is beautiful. As you enter her house, you're welcomed with the vision of an infinity pool with the Bukit Gasing hillside as the backdrop. It felt really tranquil and wonderful to be there.

But... I couldn't really sit and enjoy myself chit-chatting with the other mummies. Sean just couldn't sit still and wanted to go out of the house or walked near the pool, or wanted to push toys or other people into the pool. Sigh....He even feel off a 1.5 meter ledge!

For an instance, I was terrible afraid because he disappeared from my sight from behind the staircase and ended at the bottom of the basement steps. But it was a great party in a beautiful house and wonderful hosts. Thanks Margaret for inviting us to your house! =D

Then last Friday, 12 Dec, the KDTA gym had a year end party. It was nice to meet up with the rest of the people from the gym. I haven't exercised for 3 years! Oh my goodness....time flies so fast! I managed to snatch conversations here and there. But with an active toddler who was intent on making mischief, my concentration was just not there, but I still managed to have a good time. Eventually, Sam brought him to the gym next door and let him run round and round until he was exhausted, or so I thought. He went home and was still suer hyper. But that night, he slept really well. =D

Last but not least, I've finally gotten myself a new laptop! Yippee! =D
We got it at the PC Fair on Saturday night but it took several days of going to Digital Mal to get the O/S and drivers uploaded before it could work properly. I only got it back today.

So now, I've got my own internet access again. So hopefully I'll be checking other people's blogs more often and updating mine more regularly too! =D

Playdates

I've been busy this month because it's exam month. However, we've managed to squeeze in a few play dates here and there. Not in order of dates:

We visited Auntie Paik Ling, Bryan and Brandon at home.



We went over to Auntie Sam, Kay and Kean's place.



We had a play-date at Bangsar Village II Kidsports, where Mummy managed to sneak a quick coffee break. =P



We played at Auntie Hun Kee, Jack, and Finn's place. It's such a beautiful home. My current favourite dream home.



Some of us mummies and kids are getting to be regulars at Raju after playgroup. Today, we seated the kids together. They behaved rather well most of the time, except for one instance when Sean started to scream and the rest followed one by one! Towards the end Kristen continued screaming until her mummy, Auntie Amelia asked her to stop. By then, Sean has stopped screaming.

The kids look like they're having a very important meeting.... delightedly screaming at each other!!! It was rather noisy for a while.. Oopps... =P

More on "Terrible Two" Sean

In continuation to the previous post.

"Terrible Two" Sean is still on the loose!

It's been difficult to get him nap in the afternoon, so he's been extra hyper and cranky.

Bath time is still a struggle. I've taken out the small tub for his bath so he can splash around, as well as let him play with an old bottle to squirt water with. He really enjoys the actual bathing, but..... getting him to go into the bathroom is still difficult. "Sean, bath time!" " Noooo!!" And now that he enjoys Mummy giving his bath regularly again, he doesn't want anyone else to bathe him.

He still spits food and often does not want the maid to feed him anymore. Mummy or daddy has to sit next to him on his kiddy chair and feed him.

He's awfully accident prone. Last week, within a 24hr period, he knocked himself 4 times.

First, just before bedtime, he knocked the edge of a table and had a big split on his lip, which gushes blood everywhere. The next morning, at playgroup, he run into the side of a book shelf while running away from me, and bump his head quite hard. Half an hour later, he tripped and fell face flat on the cement floor. An hour later, at Hun Kee's house, we knocked into the side of a plate I was carrying. It gave him a bruise on his cheek, which is still recovering. When we came home, his daddy asked whether Sean has been in a fight. Sean's face had a blue black and he was dirty and sweaty. Ooops! =P

However.. not everything is bad. Now the good parts! =D

Story of the day
We're going to have a Hallowen party at playgroup next week. So for my craft this time, I made the base for a giant spider pinata and a pumpkin for today, and next week we'll make pumpkin hallowen baskets for the children to hold their sweets.

So today, I was busy directing the mothers to make the spider pinata. As usual, Sean wanted me to do something with him, but because I was busy, I told him to wait and to go play first. When I was ready to spend some time with him, I couldn't find him. He wasn't playing anywhere. Eventually, I found my little boy sitting on a small stool in the library looking at a book! That was such a sweet moment =D

Discipline
The threat of being punished is actually working out quite well. Now all I do is threatened him when he misbehave. I'll say quietly, "Do you want to be punished? Sit on the chair?" Most of the time, it works. So he hasn't been put on the chair since the last blog post... yet.

Cleaning up
Sean has been putting his toys back into their places!

I was so surprised the first time I saw him doing it because I didn't even tell him to do it. I make it a habit to put all his toys always in the same place. His "Cars" cars in an IKEA clear box, his Duplo farm in a basket, his puzzles on the shelf, he also has a plastic drawers for all his other toys and I try to make is a habit to put back all his toys always in the same place.

It doesn't mean that I don't have to clean up after him. Maybe because he sees me always putting the toys back in the same place, he now knows where they are. So if he doesn't want to play something, he puts it back.

But of course, there are times where he just drops a toy and leaves it there. So to discipline him, I stop him and tell him to put it back or pick it up. He's not allowed to go until he does it. It's slowly working for the toys in the room. Now I've got to have a system for the toys in the living room!

Terrible Two stories

The term "Terrible Two" really applies to Sean. After he turns two, he seems to transform into this mischievous kid who doesn't listen to orders. Just a few instances:

Bath time
He'll scream and struggle when the maid bathe him. When I bathed him, he behaves better, so whenever I'm home, I'll bathe him. But just the last few evenings when I'm not back from work yet, he would refuse the maid at all for his evening bath, and would pull whoever is around, his daddy or Ama, to bathe him instead. In fact, he hasn't been taking his bath until I get home and bath him late at night.

But since yesterday, bath time is a struggle, even for me.
I say, " Sean, bath time."
He goes, "Noooooooo!" and runs away. Then I'll have to go chase him, carry him while he struggles into the bathroom. Once his clothes are off, he's ok and plays with the water while I bathe him. And then when it's time to get out of the bathroom, it's another struggle. This time, because he wants to continue playing water... or more like.. messing up the bathroom. So there I go, carrying a struggling bundle who's screaming "Noooooooo!" all the while, until he gets distracted by something else. Seriously, when he behaves, bath time only last a few minutes. This way, it takes at least half an hour!

Oh Man... writing this down, reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes! Oh no... I hopes he's not going to be as naughty as Calvin!

Punching people, throwing things and pouring water
Last week, Sean saw a boy and wanted to play with him, so he went and punch him! I am terribly worried that he thinks punching is a way of playing. He bunches his fist and swings it around.. and thoroughly enjoys himself. But even though he's only two, it still hurts!

When he's in a temper he throw things.. when he's in a mood to play he throws things...When we give him a cup or a bottle of liquid, he pours it. Last weekend, he poured water at Paik Ling's TV!
We were at quite a dilemma on how to discipline him. When we hit his hand for throwing, punching or pouring, he just laughs. He doesn't feel the pain and doesn't feel disciplined.

So I remembered the sit in the corner punishment and tried it again. It worked! Of course, I have to make sure my face is serious and show him that I was really angry. I got him to sit on a stool in the corner of the room for 5 minutes. Every time he tried to stand up, I said, "Sit! No playing, no standing, you're being punished". He'll ask for a drink, for food, for a toy... I said "No drinking, eating or playing until 5 minutes is up!". I emphasized the fact that he was being punished.

Of course he cried pitifully. The hardest part about disciplining is looking fierce and not get distracted by the pitiful display of remorse. But it worked! He behaved very well for the next few hours. =D

Spitting food and water
Sean has a bad habit of spitting his food when he doesn't like it or when he wants to eat something else. Sometimes he pushed so much food inside that he can't chew properly, so he'll spit all of it out. So I give him a bit at a time. When he ask for more, I say " Finish what you have first.", which somehow makes him spit immediately.

I hit his mouth for spitting..... but I don't hit hard enough for it to hurt, which makes it redundant. He's not scared of it. Then I tried changing my word to " Swallow first".... maybe he thinks "Finish" means "Spit out"... it still doesn't work. So I'm still thinking of ways to make him stop spitting food.

A new bad habit is keeping water in his mouth and spitting it onto inappropriate places. Last night, I gave him a sip of water, which he played with in his mouth, laughing and gurgling away. And then, he spit on to the bed! Now, I think I'm a rather patient person, but that really irritated me. That was my side of the bed.. and I hate sleeping on a wet bed!

"Punishment!... go sit on your stool!"... which immediately caused him to cry frantically. He refused to sit on the stool and hugged me tightly. I made him sit on it.. and he cried so hard... with snots dripping off his nose, his hand stretched out to me, begging me to hold him... a veritable display of pitiful remorse.

I only lasted 1-2 minute....sigh.. I picked him up and got him to bed. It was already late and I didn't want him to be too agitated for bedtime.It only took him a few minutes to get back into a good mood, so I don't think he was emotionally scarred by it.

The method actually works!
So today, I use the words 'Do you want to be punished?" quite often. He's a handful.. running here and there all the time. It took me an hour to get him to take a nap because he kept getting out of the bed. Asking for a drink, a snack, to brush teeth, I turned my back, he's out of bed and playing on the floor. So I said " If you're not on the bed, you'll have to sit on the stool!".. That got him going... he he he

Oh man.. disciplining is hard. I think disciplining is harder on the parents. It's hard not to be moved by all those tears and remorse. Keeping your face looking fierce is hard too. He gets away with so many things because he looks so cute, especially when he actually sits down for 5 minutes, while being punished.

Sneaking away for coffee

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it before, but Sean is very sticky to me. He wants me to be with him all the time. So it's been very hard to do things on my own unless I leave Sean with Sam at Toys"R"us, and even then, I only get half an hour to do my shopping.

Yesterday, several of us from the playgroup brought our children to Kidsport at Bangsar Village II because there was no playgroup this week. After we settled the children there, we wanted to have coffee at Starbucks which is just one floor below.

The other mums had their maids to take care of their children, so they had no problem. With Sean being so clingy, it was difficult for me to leave him. I was afraid he would be howling away the moment I left. So Samantha, took Keane, her 9 month son, with us and left her maid to take care of Sean.

I have to learn to let go of Sean, the same way that he has to learn to be more independent. It went well, he didn't cry and I didn't rush back every 5 minutes to make sure he was alright. So we had a great time. He didn't object to being left at Kidsport and I had a good coffee break chat with the mummies. =D

First poop in the potty!

Today Sean had his first poop in the potty!

We have had the potty for more than a year and had a half-hearted attempt to introduce him to it many months ago. He wasn't interested in it, so we didn't push him. I have been wondering how was I suppose to get him potty trained. My MIL said that it's a bit too late now and we may have to wait much later because he is used to wearing disposable diapers all the time. The maid said the kid behind the house is still wearing diapers at 5 years old!!!!

Anyway.... I was feeding him his dinner, when he refused to eat anymore. Then he said "Poo" and made his "pooping" face. So I asked, "You poo poo?". He said "Poo".. Okay then, lets go clean up. But the diaper was clean, so I thought, why not let's try to get him sit on the potty. The last time we tried was several months ago, and he kept standing up, and wanted to play with the potty.

But this time, he actually, pooped! He sat in the potty and played with water in a scoop. After a while, I got him to stand up and was amazed to actually see a big poop in there!

ha ha ha... I guess you have to be a parent to find pooping in a potty such an exciting event! =P
So everyone congratulated him for pooping in a potty. That was fun...=D

Of course, this is probably a coincidence. I'm not sure when is it going to be repeated the next time. =P

Other snippets:
Sean says 'knock knock" when he knocks on the door.
And he has replaced "chou" for "Oooo" which is short for Open.

He also regularly plays in Akong and Ama's room at night to jump on their bed and run around the room. They have a big room and their mattress on a big landing, which makes it a lot more fun and safe to jump around.

A busy week

It's so nice to be able to sit and relax after a very busy week.

My Form 5 student had her SPM trial exams the last 2 weeks. So I've been teaching tuition everyday since last Sunday to juggle her last minute studying as well as teaching her brothers and sister. I've been doing last minute work to type study notes for my students too since she hasn't been able to do her own.

So my days have been filled from the moment I woke up until I sleep. It feels like working full time with extra work to do at home!
My routines were:
- Wake up and get Sean to have his breakfast with the maid while I do notes for my students.
- Lunch and some errands.
- Back home and get Sean to have his nap (which takes close to an hour everyday)
- Immediately go to teach tuition
- Come home, have dinner, have bath
and then continued making study notes while Sean pulls me every 5 minutes to play with him. Consequently I don't get to do much work.
- Get Sean to sleep (which also takes at least an hour)
- Get back to typing notes until 2 - 2.30am.

The only break in the routines was when I and Sam had to go to the Immigration to renew my spousal pass on Wed and pick it up of Fri. We had to wake up even earlier on those days! As well as Sean's playgroup on Thu's morning. Hence, my lack of beauty sleep for the past week until yesterday.

So today, we went to visit Samantha, Kai and Keane.I had a great time, chatting with Samantha, while the the kids attempt to play or not fight with each other. Sean is still not able to play together with other kids yet, but I'm sure eventually he will get used to visiting friends and be comfortable at other people's place if we go often enough. =P

24 months update

This is rather late, but I thought I should just note these thoughts down before I forget about them.

Approximately,
Height: 89-90cm
Weight: 14.3kg

Speech
I would say that there has been many temper tantrums recently. It's probably because his speech is still very limited. Compared to his peers, he's rather slow, but I'm told that many boys come to speech at around 2 1/2 years old. Some of his new words that I remember: dark, duck, star, shoe, hot, knock. If you notice, some actually sounds alike.. ha ha ha...

Most of the time, he just says NO!
This morning while I was waking him up.
I said " Wake up, Sean. We're going to playgroup today."
Sean goes, " Noooooo!", turns and went back to sleep.

On days he has nowhere to go, he wakes up early on his own. On days he has to wake up early, it's so hard to wake him up! *roll eyes*

Routines
He's starting to have his own routines.
When he wakes up, I'll bring him down to watch TV and have his breakfast.
After that, we'll play in the garden. Sometimes he just wants to watch more TV, so I let him and i read my book.

I've been letting him play with the rabbits recently. He enjoys going into the rabbit cage and gets really excited when I run around trying to catch a rabbit. I put the rabbit into the inflatable pool which has now become the rabbit petting area. But he still doesn't know how to pet them properly. He just likes looking at them. After enough playing, then he has his bath.

On good nights, we'll play until he says an emphatic "Ne!", which means he wants to breast feed. He'll pull me to bed and sits on my side of the bed. I'll ask him, "Do you want to read books?", then he'll say "Boook!" Then he'll breastfeed while I read him books, until he fall asleep.

Sometimes it's really cute to see him climb the bed on his own, sit and pull the blanket to cover his legs and wait for me to get on the bed. So Cuuutteee! =D

On bad nights, there'll be lots of temper tantrums, until I say, "Enough!", off all the lights, carry him struggling and screaming to bed, snuggle into the bed under the blanket, breastfeed and stay still for a very long time, until he calms down and goes to sleep.

New playgroup try-out
On Monday, we went to try out a new playgroup at Gospel Hall. It's more structured and each mum is required to come along. The first half hour is free play following the Montessori principles. There are lots of puzzles and toys on the shelves. Each toy has a sticker label which is the same as the sticker on the shelf the toy is on. Each child is meant to learn to put back the toys to its original place after they play. Of course Sean doesn't know how to do it yet, but I think it's a great way to teach about putting things back to its place.

Then they had half hour of singing, a short snack time, another half hour play outside on the big toys while the mummies drink coffee and chat, and lastly, a short story/teaching time.

I like the system, but Sean wasn't co-operating. He had temper tantrums after temper tantrums. Just as he was starting to get into the activities, it was time to start another one. So he got frustrated. When he wasn't crying to get his way, he wanted the toys the teachers were using as examples, or he'll run round and round within the circle of kids and mummies. He's not shy about going to the front and taking toys and behaving as if it was his right! It was so embarrassing, but all the other mums were nice about it, except for one grandmother who told me to watch my son because he was sneaking behind the teacher to take the fire engine. Oooppss... =P

I guess Sean looks big for his age and people expect him to behave better. The only time, he wasn't making a fuss was during snack time when there was a little girl who was having a bigger temper tantrum than him. He looked at her crying and behaved himself and ate his snack quietly. ha ha ha.... =D

We couldn't get a place because the playgroup only accepts a certain number of people, but I was told that we should be able to get a space in January. I'm looking forward to more activities with Sean. It should be quite fun. =D

Whatever type of day it is, I love being a mum. I feel so blessed that I can hug and kiss my little darling as many times and anytime I want to. It's really the most satisfying feeling. =D

Craft: Home-made Play dough

I made some play dough last week. It was so easy and fun to make. The result is so satisfying, not only it's better than the "Playdough" you buy at the stores, it smells better too. =D

I even managed to salvage the drying bought ones and revived them by kneading the old and new together. The almost dried play dough took a lot of work to knead together though. I had to crumble bits of them into the new play dough and knead longer. But the result was like brand new ones. Now Sean can play as much and waste as much as he wants because I can make more whenever he runs out.

Recipe:
1/2 cup fine salt
1 cup flour
1 tbsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp oil
1 cup warm water
food coloring and essences

Revised instruction:
Dissolve the salt in the water in a saucepan. Add cream of tartar, oil and essence. Put the saucepan over a small fire and add the flour a little at a time. Stir continuously until it clumps into a ball. Remove from heat and knead. Use a little flour while kneading to lessen the stickiness.

If you're making one color, you can add the food coloring in the saucepan. Otherwise, take a batch and add the food coloring a little at a time, and knead the color into the dough.

Be careful with the coloring if you don't want to have colorful hands. I had colors all over my hand because I wasn't careful while mixing the colors. It took 2 days to wash away. So if you have disposable gloves, use them. Just make the primary colors: red, blue and yellow. you can knead other colors from these. It's a great color teaching tools for older toddlers.

I used vanilla and banana essences. They smell really good. =D

Additional Note:

Leave the new dough in air for a while and re-knead once in a while. If you keep them inside containers too soon, they get too soft and soggy.

Use flour to knead until you reach the consistency that you like. If you keep inside closed container for too long, it gets too soft. So open the container once in a while.

Just to add:
The reason my previous playdough was so soft is because I forgot to add the oil!!!!. So remember to add the spoonful of oil. If you forget, just take a bit of oil and knead into your dough. It should work as well.

Sam & Sean

These are my current favorite photos. Like most of my photos, I took these photos with my hand phone camera. It's such a cute Daddy & Sean moment. I wish I have such photos of myself and Sean. Unfortunately, no one else in this house knows how to capture a great photo moment.

Birthday celebration

We had a simple birthday celebration for Sean at home. Sam decided to try a new barbecue sauce and cooked ribs. I got Sean a very small birthday cake (o.5kg) because I'm usually the only one who eat the cakes. It's going to take some workout to get all that cake from my system! LOL =P

Sean got a bible and a racing set from Akong and Ama which he enjoys looking at while we play.. ha ha ha. We got him a Spiderman stuff toy and a Duplo farm set. He'll order us to turn on the conveyor belt and pile blocks after blocks into the barn.

Auntie Paik Ling gave him 2 "Car" coloring books and stickers to add to his growing collection of "Cars" items.


We also had a small birthday bash at his playgroup on Thursday, shared with Eason who also turned 2 that week. I made fruit sticks of watermelon star, rock melon heart and rambutan globes, chicken and egg mayo sandwiches. It was a small thing, but enjoyable.

Happy Birthday Sean!

You are now 2 years old.



You are such a cutie, cheeky and full of fun.
Your various expressions makes me smile.
When you smile, my day becomes better.
When you laugh, it makes me glow inside.
When you frown, it makes me giggle,
because you just look so funny! =D


























My little baby is growing up.
No more a baby, but an active toddler,
who has strong opinions about things
even though you speak so little.

Goodbye babyhood.....
Hello.. Terrible Two!....
Sigh....


























I know you get frustrated when you can't express yourself.
I know you can't help but whine when things don't go your way.
But my little darling, you have to learn some patience,
as well as to speak words so you can talk to us.

You are my dearest heart...
My unlimited hugs and kisses.
Life is just wonderful with you in it =D

Mummy looks forward to see you grow and learn,
discover the world and the amazing things in it.
with hope that Terrible Two doesn't last very long. =P

Lake Gardens

Last Saturday, we decided to visit the Lake gardens. I've heard about it often but we've never managed to go there. When we arrived, I was amazed at the orderliness of the garden. There was a HUGE playground just nearby the entrance, where lots of kids were really enjoying themselves. Many parents seem to bring their children here on a regular basis and I can understand why. It's a huge and well maintained playground.


Sean is rather too small to really appreciate the playground, so after we spend a bit of time there, we went for a walk. We passed by a charming pond with stones walkway. It was a really nice walk. Then we entered the Kancil and Deer sanctuary, which was free entry. I just love free stuff! Don't you? =D

By this time Sean was already tired and insisted on being carried, and only wanted to be carried by me. I left my sling in the car, thinking that it was a rather flat at the Garden so Sean should have no problem. But the walk to see the deer was uphill with lots of stairs!

So, up we went to see the deers. It was worth it! There were so many deers within the sanctuary and they were well cared. That was really fun, but it was very tiring of me because Sean wanted to be carried all the way back! By the time we reached the playground again, I was totally exhausted and refused to carry him anymore. So Sam carried a struggling Sean back to the car.

We only managed to see a section of the garden and I was told that there is a butterfly garden, as well as an aviary. But they aren't free. We'll see them the next time we decide to visit the garden, but next time, I'll be sure to carry my sling along!

Playgroup - activities

The Playgroup has many toys which are not always taken out every week. We found a box of cars at the end of Playgroup last week. So this week, Sean gets to play with loads of cars. I can now leave him alone for long stretches while I chat or do a craft. Here was Sean playing with all the younger babies in the toy room. No wonder he was content, there were tracks and more cars inside!

As usual, he couldn't sit still during story telling. He was happy clamping along in my shoes while everyone was listening to stories. But towards the end, he came over and joined in trying to open the flaps of the story book that was being told. At least he finally participated in something!

Love of nature

Ever since we went on the hike last Saturday, I've been letting Sean play more and more in the garden. I'm not much of a nature person, so previously, I didn't encourage him, fearing mosquito bites and germs and dirt. But since I saw how much he enjoyed his nature walk, I've been letting him play in the garden more.

He plays with long stalks of palm leaves which he wield like a stick to hit the ground or sweep the floor. We pick up palm seeds and put into his car compartment. He helps the maid to water the garden, except that he pours water on the ground, not on the plants, making a mud puddle. He walks about with my shoes. He gets many insects and mosquito bites but never complains about them. I'm the one who complains of my bites.. LOL..

He loves it so much and can play for hours. The only reason we stop is because I'm tired and hot...ha ha ha =P

A clash of taste

We bought Sean a battery operated toy car from the pasar malam today. It cost Rm10 and I think it was overpriced considering the horrible quality of the product. It looked nice enough when we bought it (a open top smart car), but on the way home, the windscreen came off. Within 20 minutes upon reaching home,
- the wheel covers drop off and disappeared one by one.
- the battery cover came off several times.
- the little wheel that moves the car came off several times.
- the car seat came off

and within the next 20 minutes, one of the wheel broke. I thought that was the end, because I tried gluing it back with super glue and it wouldn't get stuck. But funnily enough, the car could still move with 3 wheels since a little wheel in the middle is actually the driving force of the car.

I get really irritated when I purchase something of such awful quality. I felt that it was such a waste of money. But Sean loves it! He was totally entertained for at least 1 1/2 hours, especially with the awful china-peck disco music that drones on when you turn the car on.

So for about 90 minutes, until I couldn't take it anymore, Sean was totally entertained by this awful toy. It was endearing to see him so occupied, but the price was listening to china-peck disco techno music that drones on and on.

I hope Sean's music taste doesn't continue in this line... I don't think I can't stand too much of this awful music anymore. =P

..... alakeza.. woo woo wooo....... alakeza... woo woo wooo

23 months old - Hiking up Bukit Gasing

Meera and Adhi invited us to join them on a hike up Bukit Gasing. My last hike was on a smooth path up the Bukit Timah hill in Spore. The track up Buikit Gasing was a forest mud track, not the smooth pavement I was expecting. At first I was a bit apprehensive because I wasn't sure if Sean could do it, but I had my Ergo sling with me, so if he couldn't do it, I thought I'll just sling him.

But children surprise you all the time. Sean had no fear and readily climbed the muddy steps up the hill. I held his hands, of course. He would rather not me hold him at all because Adhi could already walk the trail by himself. But Adhi is slightly older at 2 1/2 years old, and he had hiked up the hill several times, while Sean's mummy is a worry wart. =P

There were many people hiking up and down the hill. A few were training to go up Mt. Kinabalu. Quite a lot of people were walking their dogs. There was a group of girls with their 5 very well behave dogs. There were also several large groups of Health Science students doing first aid training, as well as several families having their regular Saturday family hike. We also met a group of very fit looking older people who were carrying what looked like ski sticks. Their fitness put me to shame. =P

Sean walked up most of the hill himself (while holding my hands), with me carrying him here and there when the steps were too steep or difficult for his short legs.

When we reached the top of the hill, the boys enjoyed themselves playing with sticks and stirring up dead leaves. Sean was so enthusiastic hitting around with his stick that he didn't want to leave. We saw spider webs, a tiny caterpillar climbing up an invisible line, a yellow ladybug with web-like patterns on its wings.

Going down was slightly harder because some of the steps were rather steep for Sean, so I carried him in the sling until we reached a smoother path. He was rather tired too and didn't mind a break from the hike. But after a short rest in the sling, he was ready to walk again. He really enjoyed his nature walk. =D

Here are photos of Meera and Adhi, and myself and Sean. You can see how pink my cheeks look after the hike up the hill. It felt really good to have a cold shower when we arrived home. =D