The birthday parties at Playgroup

On Thursday,
we had a simple birthday party at Playcentre playgroup. This time Sean shared a birthday with Hanzjay who also turned 3 years old this week. Hanzjay's mum, Sherinder, got the cake and drinks, so I got the rest of the food, egg sandwiches, chicken nuggets, sweet corn and watermelon. Things kids would eat, nothing fancy.

When I told Samantha and Amelia that Sean was sad that his friends weren't around on his birthday, they immediately offered to come over after Kai's kindy finished. So they came around 1.30pm to surprise Sean.









Thursday afternoon
Sean, Kristen and Kai, had a great time fighting and playing with each other. I think at this age, kids are just funny. Sean would miss them so much when they aren't around, but when they meet, they fight and then Sean usually would cry. But when later Kai and Kristen leave, Sean would miss them again. Sometimes I don't understand them. =P But Sean was really happy to have them here at home. That was a great afternoon, for us mums as well as the children.



I baked the cake for Friday's party in the afternoon and spent the evening decorating it. I made the cake for both Sean and Eason who's sharing the birthday party at Children's Corner.

Sean wanted Animal Mechanical Mouse this time round and I made a dinosaur for Eason. I also named the cupcakes Sean, Eason and Charmaine who was also having her birthday this week.

That was a lot of work. I think next year, we'll just have one big party and make a big cake. The baking doesn't take that long, but the decorating takes a lot of time. And next time, I want to have proper equipment! Doing it the old fashion way is a lot of work. But, I'm just happy that Sean is excited about both his cakes. =D

At Children's Corner on Friday



After all that preparation, the friday party was a good one. All we had to do was just enjoy the day. Joey, Eason's mummy, brought a pinata for the kids to hit at the end of the playgroup. Everything was fine until Eason was injured when Clarence swung the stick too vigorously. He was hit on his eyelid. Poor Eason, he was shocked and very scared. After crying for a long time, he managed to open his eyes. I hope his eyes are alright.


I brought the camera and was able to record short clips of Sean dancing. Daddy came along for both Thursday and Friday birthday party, and recorded the birthday for us. I think Sean enjoyed himself very much this birthday with so many parties going on.







The next day, he asked for Animal Mechanical Mighty Sasquatch cake! I think he thinks now he can ask for any cakes he wants. LOL =P

UP

We went to see 'UP' the movie on Wednesday afternoon. This was my first movie with Sean but it was Sean's 2nd movie because Sean went to see 'Star Wars' with Daddy before.

Sean behaved well but he kept saying 'Let's go home' in the beginning while the previews were being shown. But once the movie started, he enjoyed it. He found it a bit scary during the chasing scenes (and cried a little) because the music was dramatic and he gets rather affected by dramatic or scary music.

I think we can start going to see movies more regularly now since he behaved so well this time.

Bird park and The Super Hero plays masak- masak

Last week when I came back from teaching, my hubby told me that he and Sean had a great time playing Transformers. The funny thing was that the game involved "Optipus Time" and " Bubblebee" going to the chicken farm. That was the only place that Sean kept mentioning.

I think our trip to the chicken farm last month really had an impact on Sean. I would say that the trip was a rather let down for us adults but to Sean the trip to the chicken farm an exciting experience, especially sitting in the back of the truck. Chicken farm has become the destination of his imaginative play and the truck enters very often in his conversation .

So anyway, I was like...." Oh gosh, don't tell me my son only knows about chicken farms! There are so many things out there!". So we decided to get off our asses and rather than lazing about at home last Sunday, we went to the bird park.

We weren't too impressed with the bird park, we thought that it could be better. Sean wasn't that interested in all the birds, but he did enjoy chasing after the peacocks that walked about the ground, and the quails in bul-bul land. I like the quails too. They are so cute.

But after the trip to the bird park, every time he sees a picture of a bird, especially the hornbill, which is the logo of the bird park, he goes " Bird Park!"

I am currently reading a book " Endangered Minds" by Jane M. Healy. I quote " Without experiences, there are no concepts; without concepts, there's no attention span because they don't know what people are talking about."

I'm reading this after the trip. But it does stress that experiences enriches the experience stock of a child. That without these they will find it difficult to relate to concepts.

I can clearly see how each time we go somewhere interesting, it adds to Sean's ability to think imaginatively. This is only very recent though because we had brought him to the Aquarium before but it didn't seem to impact him as much as the chicken farm trip. I guess, it's only now that experiences are starting to make an impact.



Sean has started to have an interest in playing masak-masak. We don't have any cooking toys. The only things we have is velcro plastic vegetables that can be cut by a plastic knife. So yesterday, we played masak-masak. We turned a small stool to be the stove, a plastic basket as the wok, beans and plastic vegetables to be cooked, and wooden spoons for cooking.

Sean enjoyed the cooking, messing around with the beans (but I kept telling him to clean up). What he enjoyed most was serving me with inappropriate food.

Sean : Mummy Eat! (then runs away laughing and hide behind the sofa)
Me: Mmmmm... Eh! What's this? a fire engine? I can't eat this!
Sean: Laughs and laughs

And then he wanted to be a super hero. So I made him a simple mask cut out of red paper attached with 2 rubber bands, and tied an old sarong for his cape.

Sean : Mummy cook!
So I cooked.
Then he came running around pretending to shoot me with 2 marker pens as guns.

And then the super hero, spread some beans on the floor and pretended to water them. I asked him what was he doing. He said (I think) growing them. And he went back to cooking and kept serving me fire engine, plastic knife and cups for food.

He knows you cannot eat these and he was so tickled by that fact that he couldn't stop laughing. He just loves teasing his mummy. =P

Mary's wedding

As I said, the week before a wedding is full of hectic last minute preparations. I left the last 150 of making the chocolate wrappers for Mary’s wedding favors and flower basket last minute because …well… you only get excited about doing things like this nearer to the date, don’t you? =P.

I also decided to get a seamstress to make my dresses. To cut the story short, I went to the material shop so many times because I had a fickle moment about my dresses and decided to change the design totally. I was going "Why did I buy flowery materials?!!!! I don’t even wear flowery dresses most of the time. What made me even think about making flowery dresses?”

I think it would have been easier just to get someone to take care of Sean for me so I could go for a proper shopping spree. But I’ve already bought the materials, so I might as well get them made. Oh well... Lesson learned: If you decide to make a dress, plan the design first before buying the material.

Anyway.....The wedding was wonderful. David serenaded Mary as she walked down the aisle. It was done in the garden just outside the Holiday Villa Victorian Ballroom. The flowers were perfect. Everything went as beautifully as it could be. Unfortunately, we had to take Sean out 6 times during the wedding ceremony though. He was whining because he was hungry and yet refused to eat what I had in the bag. Finally, I got him some peanuts from the cocktail snack table and he was quite happy then.

The next day, we went to Ipoh for the 2nd wedding dinner with David’s parent’s guests. The day was hot and there was no air-conditioning in the car, so the bridal bouquet wilted in the hot sun. Fortunately, the bride and groom went ahead earlier in another car, so they weren't wilted like us. So we replaced the flowers with whatever flowers they manage to bring from the previous day’s dinner. Weddings are just full of surprises, lots of last minute scrambling, but always lots of fun. =D

On the wedding day, I shamelessly got the photographer to take our family picture, just the 3 of us. We don’t’ really have a good family picture, because we’re usually not dressed for it and we have no one to take pictures for us. So this is the family photo.


I also raided Mary and David’s wedding pictures for Sean’s photos. After all, most of his photos are taken by my hand-phone camera or my old camera which doesn’t give clear pictures. So it’s nice to have some good quality pictures.

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?

2 Weddings and a Grumpy Toddler

It didn't start well. I was lacking sleep from the night before because Sean tossed and turned the whole night on me. Sean has a cough and has not had enough sleep for the last 2 days, which makes him extra clingy and grumpy.

Two of our friends happen to have their weddings on the same evening. Since one is Sam's BJJ student and the other his high school mate,we had to go for both. It would have been ideal to be able to leave Sean home for the weddings. Unfortunately, my in laws don't seem to know how to handle Sean in the evening for more than 2 hours. We know that we can't go home early since we had to attend both weddings, so Sean came along.

We went to Albert & Serina's wedding early because we didn't want to be caught in the KL jam. Sean is an active boy and need to be able to run around to expand his energy. Unfortunately, The Banker's club, where they have their wedding dinner, do not usually allow children in. Hence, it wasn't a child friendly place. He kept running towards the table that held the wine glasses! So we had to carry him most of the time. We waited one and a half hour before the dinner start. So by the time we got to our seats, he was rather grumpy. But he played quietly with his Cars magnetic book for a while until I notice a smell. Okaaayyy... he poop. So off I went to the toilet to change him.

This is when things started going really wrong. I took his pants off. There was no changing table in such a place obviously. But I was glad that he was occupied with playing with the wet tissue packet while I wiped him and put on a new diaper. Just when I was about to put on his pants, I noticed that his poop had leaked inside his pants, and it wasn't just a little patch. I hadn't brought an extra pair of pants.... Aarrrgggghhh!!!!!

I really should have. When I was getting the bag ready, I almost brought an extra pair along, but my bag was already full. Since this has never happened before, I thought it was unnecessary. But OH YEAH...it had to happen when we have to attend 2 weddings!

So I tried my best to clean the pants with the wet wipes. While I was doing that, Sean was happily pulling at the toilet roll. The toilet was littered with toilet paper. Then he touched his soiled diaper and touched his poop. Aaarrrrgghhh!!!!

You know, when these things have to happen, they seem to happen at the worst time. Anyway, I managed to get him cleaned up and washed my hands thoroughly.

But when we got back to our seat, he refused to get into his chair. He just turned into total grumpiness. He wanted out of the place. Nothing could appease him. He was unhappily wriggling in my arms and my dress was falling off. Sigh.... It was such a nice wedding and we would have thoroughly enjoyed it at any other time. After Sam had given his speech, we took photos with the bride and groom and our friends. And then we took off.

But not yet.... the night hasn't ended yet.

We had to brave the KL jam to go to Eastin Hotel for KC & Li Lian's wedding. We couldn't go home to change his pants because we were already very late. Sean's pants smelled distinctly of poop. I was already dreading it. But despite the fact that we had no baby chair for almost 1/2 hour, the karaokes music was deafening and the rather drunk singer/MC talking nonsense, Sean enjoyed himself! He ate some mushrooms and noodles and he danced to YMCA. We quite enjoyed ourselves too. I had to shout to be able to hold a conversation with Karen, but I was just happy that Sean was happy. But of course, it didn't last long. Being an active boy, he wanted out of his high chair and started running around. So it was time to go home.

Oh... Home Sweet Home....

What a relief to get him out of his smelly pants, have a warm bath and wash my hair of the smell of smoke. I am still dreading the fact that he touched his poop. Although I cleaned him as well as I could, what if it wasn't cleaned enough and he ingest harmful bacteria? Fingers crossed. I hope no harmful bacteria is attacking my baby now.