There were alot of flowers in our house today. Mummy said it was Valentine’s Day. We dropped Daddy for work and went to a supermarket. They had a lot of balloons and flowers for the day. I saw a balloon with Elmo on it. Mummy saw a pot of purple tulip with really sweet wrapping. We bought the balloon and the tulip and went to Daddy’s office again. I brought the balloon to Daddy’s office and Mummy put the tulip there as well. Mummy said it was a SURPRISE for Daddy. Daddy was not at his desk so we went home. I was tired and fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, there was another vase of flowers on the table. Mummy said they were roses. There was also another envelope for me to open. It was a present from ?? back home. There were a green crocodile and a chocolate monkey inside. Mummy said they were book marks for me to put in my books. Now I know, Valentine Day is where everyone will get a surprise!

here is a surprise for me too This envelope is from ??. See what good stuff I have here!

look at these cute book marks from ??

Mummy went for a haircut in town. Me and Daddy waited for her in a cafeteria. After having my soup, Daddy brought me around to play with the little fountain nearby. There was also a park nearby just next to a lake. There were people playing with dog, roller blading and kids running around playing with some fire works toys. Finally Mummy was done but her hair still looked the same to me even after the cut! We had ice cream after that. It was a BIG cup for me, Daddy and Mummy to share.

Just 3 weeks into my weaning process and Mal is having a runny nose. Not sure whether is he having some sore throat at the same time. It started on Friday night. Just measured and he is having a slight fever now but is still eating normally. I hope it is something mild and will go off soon. I used to think that I am feeding him with the antidote by nursing him when he is unwell and I still wish I can continue doing that. Luckily I have not totally wean him off so if need to…I can still nurse him. It is alot of attachment after all this while of nursing him and I think I am going to miss it when the day come when he is totally weaned off.

At 22 month, Mal is showing traits of the terrible 2. Last week, he began to say NO to things which he would usually do. When you try to correct him and tell him he should not be doing certain things…he would say NO and refuesd to obey. I guess the time has come for him to test our limit and push his boundary. Need to find out more on how to deal with such resistant from him. Maybe a rottan or cane from back home will be good I think it is about time to find out whether I am an advocate for Spare the Rod and Spoil the Kid!

Mal had been naughty and I punished him by asking him to stand in a corner and pull his ears

He was angry

then he paused to think whether is this some kind of new game ??

Just need to make a quick record…Mal today pee in his potty successfully for the 1st time. Maybe it was by chance. I was in the toilet and I asked him to go pee in his potty as well. He took off his pants and sat in the potty for a while and started walking to the bathroom to get some tissue paper and went back to sit in the potty again. I went to him and asked him to sit there till he finished peeing…I left him alone and a while later, he came to me and told me…’pee’. I took a peek in his potty and BINGO…he did pee in his potty!

He wanted to continue sitting in his potty and refused to put on his pants. I decided to get his potty training book and showed him what the little boy in the book does. The book shows that after potty, he needs to wipe with tissue, pull up his pants and wash his hands. After reading the book, he obediently follows what the boy did. This is the time when I think peer learning is important and will make him learn new things easier.

This entry is to record Mal’s weaning process. At 22 months old, I finally think that it is about time to wean Mal off. Recently I realised that Mal could take more than an hour to nurse. He refused to let go of me even when he was dozing off. He wanted to be nursed continuously, throughout his sleep! This was definitely not doing any good to his sleep and I took it as a sign that it is time for him to be weaned off.

For 1 month or so, We tried different methods to put Mal to sleep without nursing him. We used methods we heard from friends and read from books but all seem to fail….at least for me, I think that they just ain’t right for Mal. Just an instinct on my part.

I finally found a way that I am comfortable with. I will let him cry out while staying beside him when he cries, I will pat him, console and talk to him. On the 1st day that I successfully put him to sleep without nursing, that was 2 weeks back, it was during his afternoon nap. Mal cried for an hour. I stayed next to him on the bed while he cried, pulled and tugged on my shirt wanting to be nursed. It was hard to hear him cried. Finally, I carried him while he continued to cry and eventually dozed off to sleep due to exhaustion. Half an hour later, he sat up on his bed and cried and dozed off again…10 minutes later, he cried again and dozed off again. I was sure that his intermittent crying during the nap was due to distress. Finally 20 mintues later, he woke up crying. Mal normally only cry after nap when he does not have enough sleep. That night, I decided to take a break and nursed him to sleep as I don’t think he should be deprived of his sleep.

The next day, I repeated to Mal that he is a big boy now and should not be nursed like a baby. He seemed to understand but when it comes to sleeping time, he forgot all about what he was told, and started to cry again. I had to talk and console him again and it took another hour or so for him to settle down and sleep. This went on and off for a week. I would access the situation to see whether Mal was over tired due to the weaning process as he was not sleeping as long as usual. If he was, I will break from the process and nurse him to sleep.

Finally after 2 weeks, some improvement can be seen. With me lying beside him in bed, Mal would toss and turn, whine a bit before falling asleep on his own. It may take 15 minutes to an hour for him to doze off. He can now go to sleep without being nursed!

I should be working towards not nursing him to sleep in the middle of the night so that when he wakes up in the night, he will know he needs to fall back to sleep on his own again.

Mummy bought this set of very colourful jigsaw puzzle for shapes for Mal during one those Robinson sales back home when he was much younger. It was meant for kids that are between 1-3 years old. At 21 months, Mal could finally do it! He can now recognise the colours and shape and put the puzzle in place with some assistance. I guessed he does see colours afterall and I think the manufacturer was smart to come up with toys like this which encourage learning in a fun way. This is definitely a milestone for his growth

To get Mal to brush his teeth, we need some music and sing along session. He would only allow Mummy to brush his teeth if she sings ‘this is the way I brushed my teeth, I brushed my teeth, I brushed my teeth……so early in the morning’ Wonder how else could Mummy make teeth brushing more fun so that Mal could enjoy it more and best, if Mal could initiate it himself.

Mal has a new toy. It was a present from Auntie June and it is his favourite Elmo! This time he has own personal phone. Actually it is more than a phone. It is Elmo teaching Mal how to count from 1 - 9. There are also icons for each button so that Mal learn some simple words like boat, drum, plane, shoe, ball, crayon etc. He must be also wondering whether he could call Daddy using his phone.

Mummy and friends organised another of those gathering where they could satisfy their craving for local food back home. They will be wrapping dumplings! Mummy thought this was really challenging as though grandma did wrap dumplings every year, Mummy hardly help out and dumpling wrapping is a skill she never thought she could master as having the pyramid shaped delicacy to be securely tight to a string and then in a bundle, is not an easy feat!

The preparation work for the dumpling wrapping started 2 days prior to the actual day for wrapping, with some of them going to get the ingredients and some of them preparing the ingredients which include, mincing of the meat, frying of the ingredient, cleaning of the leaves, and soaking of the glutinous rice. Come the actual day itself, what was left to do was only the wrapping of the dumpling and Mummy was helping out in that. At the end of all the hard work, each of them got to bring home 5 dumplings

Through this session, Mummy realised the power of desperation. Human could create wonders under desperation, esp desperation to satisfy the taste bud!

Hullo, Auntie MG and Regina…if you are reading this…we received your red red card and red red sticker in our letterbox already. Thank you….mmuuuaaacchhhh…. Mummy said it is a chinese new year greeting card and the lion dance is a dance that is put up by the lion during chinese new year. Mummy said not only Mal mal loves to dance, there are lions that love dancng as much as me She promised to bring me see one of them dance when we go back singapore. As for the red red sticker, Mummy said it is best paste on our door during chinese new year, with the wording upside down as it means ??. I wonder whether I should go paste the Pooh Bear and Friends outside my room upside down as well….

Nowadays kids are so lucky as they are loaded with colorful, fun and new toys and with the high standard of living back home, most young families nowadays stop at 1 kid., as having more kids naturally means more $$ and time. Unlike our time, kids nowadays grow up with toys rather than siblings. They may play with their toys more often than they play with their parents. The toys nowadays are so fanciful that sometimes Mummy and Daddy think they are fun too. Don’t we sometimes just miss those simple games we used to play…

Mal loves new toys too, he especially loves anything that has to do with Elmo! In our lawn, Mal likes to play with the ball, his tricycle and recently Mummy had brought the frisbie out to let him try as well. Today, Mummy decided to fold some paper aeroplanes for Mal to try. Just to see whether he will enjoy this simple and plain toy. He obviously has a good time…as he chuckles and giggles whenever he sees the paper aeroplane ‘fly’. I guess it doesn’t really matter what toys they have so long as they have someone to play with, they are happy

yummy yummy egg roll

the famous Bak Kua from back home….must had queued for quite some time to get this as this store is always packed during CNY

He just loves the crispy and fragrant egg roll….though they were all crushed

This was for Chinese New Year… as you can tell… Mummy is quite behind time in updating the blog….
We were so excited!!! Cos we had a parcel from Singapore on 3rd day of chinese new year. The postman made a 2nd trip cos we missed him during his 1st trip the day before. We were still not back from our LV trip. This was usally not the norm…think Mr Postman was excited to be Santa Clause to deliver this big box of goodies as well!
It was a HUGE surprise cos Mummy did not expect the new year goodies as the secret was kept well. Mal was excited too cos it looked like a BIG present. He was eager to find out what was inside the big box….There were a greeting card, a big tin of hand made egg roll, a box of pineapple tarts and 1kg of precious bak kua from chinatown!!! It was amazing how all these could go through the custom! If not all the effort and $$ would have gone to waste. Mummy was so touched and thankful for all these goodies! To reciprocate…Mummy shall oblige to let the sender stay as anonymous in this blog shhhh..hhhh….guess all philantrophists like to do that…hehehe

Garlic is like a must have ingredient for all our daily dishes. It can be quite tedious to peel garlic everytime when we want to cook. Mummy decided to do it once and for all during the day while we have some time to spare. Mal knows very well what Mummy meant by ‘peeling garlic’ cos he sees Mummy does it everyday. As usual, he is eager to help out in anything that we are doing. So here he is helping with the garlic peeling as well.

Mummy is abit concern about Mal knowledge in colours. So far he can only remember…red and blue. If u will to ask him ‘What colour is this’ he will either say RED or BLUE! Most of the time he will get the colours wrong. Mummy had to think really hard to come up with a way to understand what is Mal seeing. Does he see colours?? Can he differentiate colours?? Is his wrong answer due to the limited vocabulary of colours in his dictionary now??

Recently we had just switched breakfast to Kelloggs Froot Loops. It happened that we had some colourful magnets on our fridge which matched the Froot Loops’ colours. Mummy decided to ask Mal to group the Froot Loops with the magnets’ colours and saying out the colours at the same time. Mal sometimes gets it…sometimes doesn’t…and sometimes he is just more interested in stuffing the Froot Loops into his mouth! Maybe he doesn’t understand the rules for the game at all. Think Mummy…you are a bit too anxious…I am still a BABY!