Talking Points #3

Jules is becoming quite Lil Miss Chatty of late.  It probably is a combination of school and a vocabulary spurt which is common around this age at about 20 months.

I'm starting to lose track of her new words already so before I completely do, I thought I better just keep a record - just for my own sake and no one else's.

People

Baby (referring to the little babies in her books and whenever she sees a real baby) 

She has mastered calling all of us at home including her Da-yi and Che Che Sophie.  She's still working on her Uncle Jude and Uncle Sam.  She has also taken to calling me Mummy lately.  I think it's something she picked up from school since no one at home uses the term.  Well, I don't suppose the teachers use the term Mama in school so there you have it!

Food

Pork (Our helper taught her this at dinner time one day.  From then all, all forms of meat she's eating is pork. Ask her what's that in her bowl of grapes, the answer will also be pork)

Things

Bag

Barney

Bed

Boat

Book

Car (Graduated from saying "vroom vroom".  She can now say it the right way)

Car key

Cup

Pour

Puppet (She surprised us with this one day.  I was packing her toys and putting away her bag of puppets when she just pointed to it and said "puppet")

Shoe

Soap (Our daughter is a little OCD.  She has a thing for mopping the floor and washing her hands multiple times with soap)

Animals

Pig (From her new love for Peppa Pig)

Cow

Nature

Sun

I can't be more proud of her to see her making all these little development in her speech.  It must be a lot of hard work which probably explains a little regression in her sleep patterns the last two weeks.  

Good job my baby!  Mama's so proud of you!! 

Happy Papa's Day

Hello everyone, 

It has been a while since I last guest-stared here on Mama's blog.  Mama says I was too lor-sor the last time so she banned me from writing any more post.  But because today is a special day, she promised to let me invade her blog once more as long as I promise I'll finish my dinner later.  I haven't had my dinner (and haven't decided if I will finish it) but what do you know, I get to blog first! My Mama is lousy at this barter-trade business like that. 

Mama tells me today is Papa's day.  A special day to celebrate all the Papas in the world for the things they do which are often un..un...apprec...cciated (why can't you adults use simpler words?).  Mama says people always think Mamas sacrifice more than Papas (which she says it's true) but that doesn't mean Papas are not important. 

I have an awesome Papa.  He blows the best raspberries on my tummy, gives me all those little sweet treats when Mama isn't looking, reads me my favourite "Crocodile" book and lets me do the craziest thing on Por's Por's bed like somersaulting and sliding down grandma' pillow - much to Mama's disapproval!  Papa bathes me and my rubber duckie toys in my bath tub everyday and always changes my poppy diaper when he's home.  Simply put, he's best at making smelly things smell good again!  It's like magic.  My Papa loves me verrrry verrrry much.  And you know what is the best thing - he loves Mama verrrry verrry much too!! 

I love my Papa very much.  Mama tells me that when I grow up, I must find a man just like Papa.  I don't really know what that means but Mama says I will understand some day.  I gave my Papa lots of cuddles today and I hope you did too!! Here's me and my favourite boy in the world! 

To the best Papa in the whole wide world

Happy Papa's Day to my Papa!!! 

Till my next post!

Love, 

Juju    

Happy Daz

Nothing very much, just popping by to post some happy photos!!

It's Friday!! Have a faaabuuulous weekend everyone!!

Our evening tambourine instructor

Learning from Mama

Gardens by the Bay - Cloud Forest

Letters to Julianne #24

Dearest Julianne,

As promised, May turned out to be so much more fun than April didn’t it.  After that nasty flu-bugged April, we finally had some reprieve. 

Other than our Penang holiday, I think one of the biggest highlights of your May was the explosion of vocabulary and speech.  Right on the dot as you turned 18 months, your speech development took a leap as you picked up new words and sounds at lightning speed.  You have started speaking in 2-word sentences like “no more”, “one more” and “Dada pour”.  Which means you are now capable of telling us what you want like when you want more blueberries or when you want us to pour your water into a cup. You can now call out to everyone at home and the moment you wake up in the morning, you do a row-call of everyone at home from Gong Gong down to Yiyi.  We hear your adorable row-call over the baby monitor while having our breakfast waiting for you to wake up from your beauty sleep – it makes everyone’s morning. You can parrot most of the words we say, here’a video of Sophie Che Che attempting to be a good teacher on our recent Penang trip.  Mama thinks she did a mighty fine job!  Some of the new words you have picked up recently – “cracker” (referring to your ritz biscuits), “pour”, “sit”, “baby”, "there", "car" and the alphabets “a”, “b”, “c”.  You can also point to the Bible and say “bable” – so proud of you.  I’m excited to see what other news words you’ll be picking up this month.

You have joined your big friends in toddler class at school and I’m happy to report that you’ll enjoying school more than you ever have these days.  No more tears and Teacher M tells me what a happy child you are at school, always enjoying music and movement and playing with your friends.  Today when I picked you up from school, you were behind the gate playing, looking completely comfortable with your friends and teachers and in no hurry to go home.  A completely different scene from where we were a month ago when you were most eager to have me carry you and pick up your shoes to head home the moment you saw me.  I couldn’t be more pleased.  So while you were still playing, I had some time to speak with Teacher S and got to hear some stories.  Apparently you know which water bottle belongs to which child and you’ll help distribute all the water bottles during water breaks.  You will also instruct your little friends where to sit during circle time.  Teacher S says you are pretending to be like a teacher.  I’m not surprise cos you do the same at home.  You sit on your little stool (actually it’s your doctor set) in Por Por’s room and hold up the placecards we made for you and pretend to be teaching your stuff toys phonics, otherwise, you’ll be holding your tambourine and going “baa baa baa” (i think you’re trying to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep).

Monkey facing with Gong Gong

Some of your first this month - sorbet on cone and your very own naughty corner

You are generous with showing love and giving out hugs, I hope you never lose that beautiful trait.  Whenever you hear Barney’s “I love you” song, you’ll pull me or Dada close and cuddle us tight.  Yiyi Sam tells me that these days, you like to snuggle up to her and give sweet smiles.  You receive so much love from everyone at home, I’m glad you know just how to return them.

Huggy Hug with Che Che

These days, you run, not walk. If you could, you much prefer to dance your way around, everywhere you go.  You have a knack for music and rhythm and are perfectly in your element whenever the music comes on and you have all the freedom to dance to it.  I think we most likely will sign you up for ballet class in future, just in case you truly have a gift and become some child prodigy in dance.  Yes, just in case – your parents like to dream big. 

I say this every other month but you really are at a very adorable age.  You can somewhat communicate with us, you can tell “stories” with the help of alot of finger pointing, you laugh when we say something funny or when you watch something funny on TV and you keep us entertained and surprised everyday with the little gimmicks and tricks that we never knew you knew.

Playing dress up

Happy 19^th month my sweet darling.  June is going to be quite a quiet month with Yiyi Sam away for most part of it.  You are going to get a little lonely in the afternoons but thankfully there’s school to occupy you and Papa and Mama to up it up with lots of cuddles at night!

Always Mama's sunshine!

Big kisses

Mama   

         

Penang

We just came back from a short 3 nights getaway to Penang.  It was a very special holiday cos it was the first time the entire family travelled together with the kiddos in tow!  We took advantage of the long Vesak Day holiday and decided on a relaxing beach holiday with a little something for everyone! 

A little hash brown treat pre-flight

The 1 hour flight was thankful a no-event both ways.  The last time Julianne flew was 6 months back when we returned from Melbourne.  She’s clearly more curious about the plane now and was most fascinated by the in flight demonstration of use of the safety equipments on board.

I last visited Penang way back in 1988 or 1990 thereabouts so it has been a good 20 odd years.  Not that I remember very much of that trip but Penang is still very much a laid back town doing its best to maintain her heritage and charm in the form of some UNESCO heritage sites like the Chew’s Jetty and Peranakan Mansion we visited.  We had a driver with us who took us around to take in the sights and charm of old Penang.  He of course also brought us (and our tummies) on a delectable food tour that no visitor to Penang should go without.  If you ever visit Penang, I highly recommend you engage the services of Ocean Jupiter Tours.  Minder our driver knew Penang at his fingertips and was always ready with some history and story to the places we visited.  Tell him what you want to eat or a specific place you want to go and he’s all ready to take you there plus extra surprises like that to-die-for samosa he brought us to.  He was also most accommodating to our schedules – picked us up from the hotel at 10am and got us back in time for the kid’s nap around 2ish before picking us up again to take us to our dinner destination.        

At the Chew Clan Jetty

The Peranakan Mansion

Street Murals

We stayed at the Shangri-la Rasa Sayang – a lovely hotel in Batu Ferringgi by the beach.  Our two little kiddos were naturally happiest in the hotel with their cartoon, snacks and swimming pool.  Not surprising since I didn’t think they care very much for Penang char kway teow or chendol.  I was a little concern about what I was going to feed Jules on the trip so the plan was to pack food from the hotel’s breakfast buffet spread for her lunch and order room service for her dinner to bring along if we had to.  The breakfast buffet spread was really good with a Japanese selection even so udon and Japanese rice saved the day.  We also skipped all that tourist traps in Gurney Drive and had our fill of hawker food from some of Penang’s most famous coffee shops and had really good Nonya food for dinner at Ivy’s Nonya Restaurant – oh that yummy chicken kapitan!  I should add that the complimentary high tea at the hotel was also such a delight – that scone with clotted cream and strawberries was such a treat especially when they made an exception for the hubs and I to enjoy it in our room cos we had to watch over Jules while she napped. 

Feeding our tummies.  Yes we ate all of that!*

Jules was really happy on the trip and I’m sure it had all to do with having her Sophie Che Che with her.  Our parents’ rooms was just opposite ours so she was just room hoping here and there as if it was home.  She got to hold hands with Sophie, sing songs during the car rides, have breakfast with her cousin and splash around the pool together – it was like wonderland for her! The first thing she did when she woke up in the morning was to run to her shoes and ask to go out!  She also picked up some new words on the trip – thanks to Sophie being such a good ‘teacher’!  So nice to see the both of them playing together now although I sensed moments of jealousy when I was cuddling Sophie and our little Miss Jealous also decided at that time that she wanted Mama to cuddle her.  Children.

Couldn't be more happy with Sophie Che Che around

It was a really good break for everyone.  We took the heritage sites, ate our fill (and i mean ATE ALOT) and the kiddos had fun by the pool (although the beach wasn’t anything to shout about).  The hubs even managed to go jet-skiing one afternoon.  

By the beach with Gong Gong

It was a short trip but totally relaxing and enjoyable all the same.   Having family with us made all the difference.

Family!

Till our next holiday!

*photo credit to the young sister's instagram and typic-pro skills.

Talking Points #2

Jules is going through a little vocabulary spurt of late.  She has added some new words and even a 2 word sentence to her list.  Everyone at home gets very thrilled hearing her pick up new words and saying them out loud.  They don't always sound perfect which makes it all the more adorable actually. 

People
Yiyi (Finally called Yiyi! My younger sis was sooo happy, she called me up at work and put Jules to the phone just to prove her point)

Food
Blueberry (Her other favourite fruit after strawberry.  She must have figured better start with my favourites.)


Nature/Animals
Moon
Star


Expressions
No more (Her first 2-word sentence.  She says it when there's no more food left in her bowl or when the song on the disney/baby tv channel has ended)
One more (This came shortly after "no more".  There was no more blueberries in her fruit bowl, so she looked up at her Papa with her puppy eyes and said "one more".  She went on to let out a loud chuckle when her Papa happily obliged her with another berry)

I think it thrills herself as much as us that she can now use words to communicate and let us know what she wants.  I leave you with a random photo we took over the weekend!  Happy Tuesday! 

Little Miss Chatty

Happy Mothers' Day

I'm quite sure Julianne knows nothing about today being Mothers' Day.  All she knows is that she had to hand me this big huge purple box containing a lovely hand-made gift by Papa.  And if you asked her last night, she would also have told you that the Isetan paper bag that she spent the entire of last night carrying around the restaurant was also meant for Mama.  My daughter is sweet that way.  She did give me an extra wet kiss complete with biting my chin as I was putting her down for her afternoon nap!  Maybe, just maybe, she does know today's meant to be just that extra special for Mama. 

But really, it was just like any other Sunday - although I must say I really love the little photo calendar the hubs put together for me!  He got one of those blank calendar-style scrapbook and filled it with 30 of my all-time favourite photos of Juju and us - one for each day of the month - and topped each page off with the date of the photo and a some short journaling.  It was really sweet!  Gonna bring it to the office and let it don my desk! 

Cover page of the gift from Juju!

The day it all began ....

I've been at this motherhood business for some 18 months (ok plus a few days) now and really, I'm still learning everyday.  It is no easy business - I salute my mum for being at this for the past 36 years.  I look back at the past 18 months and think of those times I was stretched to my limits and got frustrated or irritated by Jules and I think what a horrible mother am I.  Then I think about all those hugs, kisses, pats pats Jules has showered me with or cries for me to carry and comfort her when she was sick or needy and I think - my daughter looks past all the times I've vented my frustrations at her and still thinks I'm the best person in the world and that if there's anyone she wants to be carried by when she's unwell, it is ME.  Which makes me feel even more horrible that I would sometimes be angry with my little munch'kin.  But I'm just being brutally honest here, because motherhood is no walk in the park and while on most days, you wished the day didn't end and you could go on cuddling her and all that baby powder smell, there really are some days where you can't wait for it to be over and for the little one to just be sent to bed.  

And so I continue learning.  Learning to be patient, learning to love even more, learning to be the best mother I can.  And while I continue this learning journey, I'm just glad I've got Jules by my side to continue smothering me in her kisses even when I fail her and I've got the best partner in my tag-team running this motherhood/parenthood race with me. 

The reason I celebrate Mothers' Day!