Fun in the sun!

Just got back from Melaka. We stayed at the Hotel Equatorial and the boys had a really great time frolicking in the hotel pool till they are all brown and toasty. Talk about being the TAN family!! =P

Stuff we did:

Eating...

More eating...

 

Some sightseeing..

Caricature drawing...

More eating...

Lots of swimming...

And homeward bound..

Weekend activities

It's been a really long time since we've gone swimming! Kiefer has even forgotten about the pool and he yelled his head off when we dumped him in!! =P Still after 5mins or so, he thoroughly enjoyed himself in there. And yes, today is Melaka day!! More sun and fun!!

And this is Kiefer's latest love...

We are going Melaka tomorrow!!

Holidays have come (and they are going really soon too..). With H1N1 everywhere, we cannot really go anywhere far and so we've decided to go Melaka again! Somehow, hubby and I love this small little historical town. Not there we really go and appreciate its history or anything, we simply love the simple short road trip out of Singapore. I really look forward to eating, eating and more eating. And hopefully, this time around, we'll get to use the hotel's pool, especially now that Kieran is skipping his afternoon naps already.

Holidays are finally here!!

Yes, it's ONE week into the June hols already! Cliche, but yes, time flies when you are having fun! So what have we been doing the past week? We've been revamping the study again. Not really a big revamp but we've added shelves in front of our tables to create more space. Ok, mine was to create more table space, hubb's to keep Kieran off his things on the table! :P

Some updates on the boys:

Kieran:

He is starting to go off diapers. He'll ask to "wear briefs" when we go out. He is not very good and letting us know that he wants to go to the toilet yet, but if we remember to keep bringing him to the toilet every hour or so, we usually do not get any accidents. :) He usually wakes up in the morning with his diaper fairly dry. If we put on his diaper just before he sleeps, the diaper is usually dry when he wakes and he'll ask to go to their toilet.

On the language front, he is getting very good at listening and expressing what he wants. Sometimes while we are talking in the car and we think that he is just dazing or looking outside the window, he'll suddenly repeat something that we were talking about! Thus we really try to be careful with the words we use these days. Yes, the expletive.  He actually used Fxxx couple of weeks back! I'm glad that we caught it early and he now knows that he cannot use naughty words. Actually for awhile, he says, "Mummy, cannot say Fxxx!" whenever he remembers that he was scolded for saying it. It was so funny and yet we could not laugh in front of him! Other than that, he is now really good. Like this morning, the I woke him up to change him to go out. As I was putting him in a shirt (he usually wears tshirts), he said "no school today." (cos his school uniform is a shirt and shorts). I said, "yes, no school.", and he asked, "where we going?". We are a long way from last time where everything was "nah. eh." :D We are so glad that Kieran is really improving by leaps and bounds since he started school. Of course, he is going into his terrible threes too!! (another post for another day.. again.)

On Kiefer:

He is such an adorable toddler now. He is getting more steady on his legs and can freestand for about 1s or so when he forgets and lets go of his grip. He is independent (when he wants to be), smacks his Kor Kor when Kor Kor take toys away from him :P and yells really loud when he wants something. And yes, this little fella has quite a temper. Whenever his is unhappy with something, he'll pout and do his "phoooooopht" thingy!! And he'll show his indignant face. On fours, he's a mean moving machine!! :P He moves around the house with great speed and yes, his favourite spot in the house? That'll be at near the main door, next to the shoe cupboard and eating shoes!! :P

Kieran is 3!!

Time flies when we are having fun! Kieran is already 3 years old!! In this one year, his speech and vocabulary has improved by leaps and bounds. He now uses phrases (and even slangs!) :P and yes, he knows expletives as well (and that's a story for another day!).

Here's a photo update of Kieran's 3rd year:

Kiefer is ONE!!

Yes, our little baby is growing up! He is now cruising all over the place and also starting to have some speech development. Here's some updates:

Speech/ language:

• a-oh.. (*hello*) with hands/remote/ phones to his ears
• eh.eh..eh..eh.. means he wants something or go somewhere
• get!/ duck! Don't know what this means, but the duck usually comes after a sneeze
• recognises some pictures like "duck, dog"

Dexterity:

• cruising very well, can free stand for 1s sometimes
• crawls really fast
• still puts everything into his mouth

Feeds:

• Direct BM 3x a day (6am, 6pm, 9pm)
• 1 120ml EBM (9am) + 1 120ml FM (230pm) Enfagrow
• breakfast - 1 scoop of cereal
• lunch & dinner - usually porridge with vegetables and fish/ tofu (1/2 - 3/4 rice bowl full)
• biscuits in between meals

Naps (Weekdays):

• Leaves the house at 630am, usually continues to sleep after reaching IL's place till about 830am
• Nap at about 10 till 11ish
• Nap after lunch till about 3pm (or whenever we fetch him)
• *if we are early, nap at about 3ish till dinner time at home
• Sometimes an evening nap before dinner (about 1/2 -1hr)

Naps (Weekends):

• Wakes at about 9am
• Naps at 11 till lunch (or no nap till after lunch)
• Afternoon nap from about 3-5ish
• Bedtime at about 930-10pm

Kiefer's 1st birthday!

Our little boy just turned 1 over the weekend! Yes! Our little May Day baby! Here are the highlights!

Ton Thomas!

M: What do you want to watch?

K: Ton thomas

M: Thomas?

K: ton thomas

M: thomas?

K: Ton-toh-mas! (to the melody of "Transformers!)

so it was Transformers.. and not thomas!! hee.

What a week(s)!

Everything started with Kieran being a little sick, then me coming down with a bad case of cough and cold and losing my voice and then Hubby with the hearing problem. Then Kiefer got a viral infection somehow last weekend and had high fever all through the weekend. The fever only abated after about 3 days and right now, he is still recovering from the post-viral rash! (and yes, hopefully everything subsides by tomorrow! It's our little baby's 1st birthday tomorrow!! :D) We simply went through cycles of being sick, recovering partially and falling ill again. :(

However, the most 'memorable' incident to happen this week would really be the one where Kieran puked right onto Daddy's face! I think he was nursing a mild flu bug (that was barely noticeable except for the lousy appetite) at that time. He was just finishing up his milk when he suddenly complained that he had a tummyache. As I was trying to get Kiefer to sleep at that time, I called for the Daddy to come in to take him to the toilet. The Daddy carried him and without any warning, from the corner of my eye, I saw this projectile spray coming out from Kieran and onto Daddy's face!! The next thing I saw was Daddy's face (nose, mouth, everything), shirt was covered with puke. The sheets got it, the floor had it, the comforter was also marked. In the end, both father and son simply marched off to the bathroom and hosed down. And me? I had to strip everything and start the laundry going at 10pm at night! It took 3 loads of laundry to get everything cleaned! Also, I had to mop the floor too! After this entire episode, all Kieran said was "Mummy, Yakult please?" :P

PS: it was such a Kodak moment, but if I were to go get the camera instead of attending to them, I was sure to get an earful!! :P

hate these bugs..

We just can't seem to shake off this virus/bacteria/mycoplasma thingy that is plaguing us. I lost my voice about 2 weeks ago and never really got it back. Now I am down with a runny nose and sore eyes again. Going to see a doctor later and just stay home.

Hubby also has some hearing problems that the ENT doctors do not know what it is. He is on loads of meds to tackle possible viral infection or hydrops (which is what we are hoping). He's gone for a CT scan and thank god everything came back fine. The meds are working but really slowly. The pressure in the ear comes and goes and he is still having tinnitus. We just hope that everything goes away.

Kiefer is 11 months old!

That's the funny face that he does now when the camera is pointed in his face. Haha.. he looks like he is in agony or something. But trust me, he IS smiling. :P

Updates:

• definitely cruising
• stands up with support very well, in fact, he requires minimal support when standing. sometimes he simply needs to 'touch' something to stand up
• hearty eater. can finish an entire rice bowl of porridge with meat/fish/tofu + 2 cubes of vegetables
• has 1 bottle of formula (enfagrow) on most days
• crawls quickly (esp where there is food or remote control)
• very vocal. will yell/whine for what he wants. try being feeding him too slowly, he'll yell to be fed
• does hello, big kiss, clap hands, shake hands, smack (when naughty), blows raspberry bubbles,  pray (puts his hands together), points at things
• still puts everything into his mouth
• has some idea of object permanence. he knows that the remote control is hidden away and not simply disappeared. will sometimes look under the pillows for the remotes.
• loves his pacifier very much still. we don't usually bring it out with us, but once we get home and he sees it, he'll put it into his mouth. he's not obsessively sucking it when awake, but when sleeping, it sometimes doesn't fall out of his mouth for the entire night
• He still gets awful mozzie bites that swell and blisters. Hopefully he outgrows that. His legs are quite ugly with all the mozzie scars. Each time he gets bitten, the bites swell and when they subside, they leave behind a darker patch (like a blue-black bruise). :(

naughty vs happy?

When Kieran is asked if he is naughty, he'll sometimes go "not naughty, happy!" He seems to think that 'happy ' is the opposite of 'naughty'. Wonder where he got that. Anyway, he is really getting quite naughty these days. He'll always take toys/books/things away from Kiefer, even though he is not interested in playing with them. He says that it's 'sharing' but in actual fact, his 'share' means he gets to hold the item. Very often, he also tries to carry Kiefer or attempts to stop him from holding on to drawer handles/ tables for support (when Fer tries to stand up). I don't know if he is doing so cos he feels that Kiefer will fall or he is just being naughty. Whatever the case is, it usually results in Kiefer falling down. :( Goodwill aside, there ARE incidences where he would purposely bully Kiefer. Just an hour ago, he waited for Kiefer to put his fingers near the drawers and then tried to close the drawers on Kiefer's fingers. That happened even tho Daddy told him not to do that. :( I think he is really trying to get attention but that is just so wrong. We really have to find a way to manage that!! I think we have to stop yelling at him/ smacking him cos he imitates our behaviour. He smacks Kiefer and yells at him cos we do that. :P However, sometimes that's our first reaction cos we are not near enough and we yell to get their attention. Gotta reflect on that.

Some great updates tho'. Kieran's language is improving again. He uses phrases like "it's not yours, it's mine!" (yes, when it comes to things that he wants) and he can express quite a lot nowadays. He is able to tell you what he wants (or doesn't want). Now we don't have to second guess him as often as we used to. Language-wise, he really has come a very long way. He now just has to improve on his bad behaviour!!

Well, we think we are entering the TERRIBLE THREES!

Trying to potty train Kieran

We can't say that we are really training him and we can't say that we are not either. Here's what we've been doing for the last week. 

At Grandparents:

He wears briefs and they are supposed to ask him to go toilet every 1/2h. When I was there in the afternoon, he usually has pee if he is asked to go toilet. But if we forget to ask, he will not say and he will go in his briefs.

At home,

In diapers, cos mummy has no time to clean up pee pee messes. But when he says that he wants to "poot poot" I will quickly bring him to the potty and he goes in there. And he's really cute, he'll go "Tada!" when he sees the poop in the potty. haha!! And then he'll ask for a star for his "Kieran is a Good Boy" chart! :D

Day at the Flyer.. again.. (P1)

 

Kieran finally sat on his own for a haircut!! No crying, no whinning. In fact, he was really happy to get his hair cut!! We've come a long, long way!!!

Since we had the Family Pass for the Singapore Flyer, we went there a couple more times this holiday. (We are at ride #12 already!!) Brought along out Nikon today and thus, some nice photos for memories (and scrapbooking!! :D)

 
 
 

Day at the Flyer.. again..

 

This kinda sums up our day at the Flyer!
 

C is for cookie...

It's the hols (and it's finishing soon.. :() and so we've got time to do stuff! Baked a bunch of chocolate chip cookies with Kieran last night. Yummy!! Kieran helped in the creaming and the folding and the scooping of the mixture onto the baking sheet! Yummy yum yum!

  

Kiefer is 10 months old!!

Another 2 more months and we'll be celebrating this little fella's 1 year old birthday!! Yay!

An update of the things he can now achieve:

• Crawl (belly up) all over the house
• Pulls himself up to a standing position, as long as he has something to grab on to
• Start cruising a little
• claps hands on demand (he could do this since he was about 8+ mths. Can't remember if I blogged about it.)
• waves goodbye (whole arm movement)
• says "alouw.." (*hello*) with his hand to his ears!! (in a low voice) :P

I've also started a little meat (pork) in his diet and am going to try beef later today. 

Kieran says...

in the car...

mummy: later you finish nai nai you gotta go sleep ok?

kieran: no. kieran work!

mummy & daddy: *eyebrows moved up* :D

mummy: do you have work to do?

kieran: *seriously nodding head* Yes. 

hahaha... 

a quick update

a quick update on Kiefer:

1. a second tooth has sprouted. bottom front. it seemed to have just popped up overnight, 2 nights ago! that probably explained the cranky-drink-milk-nip-me-all-the-time syndrome. :P anyway so he now has 2 (lower) front teeth.
   
2. he now generally eats cereal for lunch and porridge (millet + white rice or brown rice) for dinner. the carbo is usually accompanied with 2 cubes of vege (either 1 green + 1 orange or 2 cubes of broccoli). just started him on some pork today.
   
3. every weekend (sat and sun) he has 1 bottle of formula (Enfalac) in the morning. 4 scoops + 120ml of water.
   
4. leopard crawls very well and can sometimes lift his abdomen up and do a proper crawl.
5. can move a sitting position from lying down on his own.
6. does the "plphooophst" (blowing raspberries) (with tongue sticking out sometimes) whenever he is angry/displeased/ doesn't get whatever he wants. :P

update on Kieran:

1. his language is increasing by leaps and bounds. he has now promised to "3 year old birthday, throw bottle, drink milk from cup and go toilet!" i actually taught him to say "go potty" and thus was surprised when he said go "toilet" instead!! haha. he now counts 1-13 in Mandarin too! he is starting to speak in phrases and attempts to form sentences. e.g. "xie xie daddy bring wheel!" (aka thank you daddy for bringing me to the flyer)
   
2. he'll ask to read some books before bed every night. and the some would mean all the books lying around next to his bed. and that's easily 5-6 usually. sometimes we are guilty of not reading with him cos we are just so tired. :(. have to try harder mummy!
3. he is really happy in school. no more "no school". when asked if he wants to go school. it's always yes! :D

Kiefer is 9 months old!

Time really, really flies with this little one! It seemed not too long ago that we were just in the hospital, amazed at how closely he resembles his brother. Now he is an active and noisy little baby!

In the last month he has learnt to sit up indefinitely and on occasion, he is able to move into the sitting position while on his front. And yes, he is officially mobile! He creeps (leopard crawls) very quickly, especially to get to his favourite items (e.g. keys, phones, remote controls). Pretty much everything he lands his hands on goes into his little mouth for some tasting! However, the items now also undergo a little gnawing from that one little tooth on his lower jaw. :P It was amazing how fast he went from trying to move to suddenly being able to move forwards. He only spent 2 days wriggling backwards and then he figured out how to move forwards already! Prior to creeping, he got to places by rolling about! It was amusing to see him rolling onto his front and rolling back onto his back to and fro trying to get to wherever he needed to be! He'll roll and look to see how far he is from his target and then he'll try again! :P Yesterday, he has successfully gotten off Kieran's bed butt first! The funny thing about Fer Fer is that he tend to learn or achieve milestones in no order. i.e. he sat up before he could roll over, stand with help without being able to sit up properly, and now, get off the bed butt first without even trying to plunge headfirst onto the floor like most babies! That's our little Kiefer for you! :D

On the eating front, I still think he doesn't really eat a lot but yes, he is improving. He usually has brown rice cereal for lunch and porridge (white or brown rice) for dinner. I may have to start giving him some breakie too? And usually, he gets some homemade curd everyday or alternate days to just help his bowel movements a little. I still have not started meats with him, probably in another month or so. Thus, his proteins now comes from tofu and his fats and omega-3s from flaxseeds and avocados.

Happy CNY!!

Kieran refused to allow his hair to be cut professionally for the longest time. I had to do a trim about 1 week before CNY but it kinda turned out bad. So we really had to get him a professional cut. Brought him to Junior League (Vivo City) and surprisingly, he was rather agreeable (even though Daddy had to sit with him). Since he was so cooperative, we asked the lady to give him a really short cut so that it'll last longer, ha and hence the pai kai look!! :P

New jammies for CNY! Bought the WALL-E one from Toys 'R' Us in HK. Fer's glow-in-the-dark rocket one was bought in Melaka. I didn't notice any glowing though. Fer wore that jammie once in Shanghai. But yeah.. still new.

The cousins all in blue. Thought that they were really cute fooling around on the floor like that. If only they played so nicely all the time!!

What's CNY without the traditional Tok Tok Chiang clothes? Fer wore Kieran's old suit from 2 CNYs ago. Still looks good haha.. He looked like some Kung Fu master!! Now to see who to pass that on to. Kieran wore Leighton's suit. The 3/4 pants actually looked funny on him and I didn't want to spend money getting new ones that would only be worn once or twice.

The annual Lo Hei. Not many lo hei sessions this year. Only this one on the 1st day and the other day at school. Love lo hei. Yummy!

Reunion Dinner (18 Jan 09)

Forgot to make this post after the dinner. Mum and Dad were flying out to Fuzhou (today actually) and hence the super early reunion.

  
  

 

It's a big cleanup day!

Had an off day from work today and since Kieran still has school, it's just me and Fer at home. Cleaned up the entire house, mopped the entire house and put away most of Kieran's toys. (Well, he'll probably take them all out when he gets back later!! :( ) Now the house is decent for CNY!

Happy CNY everyone!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

We celebrated our 5th year ROM anniversary at Bottle Tree Village last Saturday. It was really, really windy there. The food was only alright, but the boys had fun at the little playground there.

Fer Fer's sprouting tooth!!

Can you see that little white spot? The tooth hasn't cut the surface yet, but you can see a little white band. That probably explains the salivation (not a lot but more than usual) and the increased crying. And yes, the waking up at 3am for milk. :(

Kieran says...

Kieran is still not very proficient in speaking and so I am not always able to find out the things he did in school for the day. I tend to use whatever little knowledge I have of their activities in school and try to ask leading questions. So this is what I do everyday when I pick him up:

M: Did you have fun in school today?

K: Yes!

M: What did you do?

K: play school (or sometimes he doesn't reply)

M: What did you play with?

K: ...

M: Did you go to the gym to drive the car/ sing song/ draw etc?

K: Yes!

M: What did you eat in school today? (depending on the day of the week) 

M: Cornflakes? Porridge? Bread?

K: No porridge. Bread.

M: What did you drink? Juice or water?

K: Juice

M: What juice? Apple or orange?

K: Apple Juice

So usually it is a hit-and-run kind of situation. He'll answer yes/no to my questions and sometimes he'll be able to actually tell me the stuff he really did.

Last night, over dinner, I was talking to him about school again.

M: What is your teacher's name? Miss..?

K: Miss...

M: Miss Jaslin

K: Miss Jas..lin

M: Do you like Miss Jaslin?

K: Yes! 

M: Does Miss Jaslin sing songs?

K: Yes!

M: What about Su Lao Shi?

K: Su Lao Shi, Zao An!!!

M: :P

Then I showed him 1 finger.

K: yi!

2 fingers.

K: er!

3 fingers

K: san!

M: =D =D =D

I didn't expect him to do 1, 2, 3 in mandarin! We always taught him in English. Looks like his mandarin has got some hope afterall!!!

Kieran & school

m: do you like school?

K: yes

m: do you want to go school tomorrow?

k: No!

It's always the same answer. He will say that he likes school, he is happy in school but when you ask if he want to go to school, it'll always be a resounding "no!". :P

Spoke to his teachers yesterday and all of them said very positive things about Kieran. They said that he's big Kor Kor in school now and he is really active in school. They also said that he is very different from the boy who first went to school last term. He is no longer as reserved and seem to have grown up quite a bit over the holidays. I'd like to think that it is because of Kiefer's arrival that Kieran has grown up. There is someone to share the attention that used to be all his and it has been a good change actually. Instead of becoming a jealous little boy, he is actually more confident and more generous now. I believe that our 2 boys are really meant to be brothers to each other and I know that they have loads to teach each other (and us too..).

Kieran is learning to speak a lot more. He can converse in short phrases and is enthusiastic to learn pronunciations when we correct him. (He just came to me and said, "Mummy, Kieran ta-muck-egg *stomachache*") He uses phrases like "mummy sleep (with) fer fer, daddy sleep (with) kieran". We see him steadily progressing in his language, vocabulary and speech. As much as I'm happy that he is speaking well, I'm sure going to miss his mispronunciations and the look on his face when he searches for the words he needs to say and use.

I'm a little sad that Kieran has grown up, but I am extremely proud of the little boy that he has turned out to be. :D

Half a year has gone by for the 2 brothers...

Didn't manage any paper scrappbooking this hols and this is one of the few digital pages I did in this break. Time flies, and here's our 2 boys this half a year!!

Gastroenteritis.. blah..

Been suffering from a bout of gastroenteritis (or at least I think that it is) all weekend. Started with pains that spread all the way to the back on Saturday and the runs (bad ones) on Sunday. It got so bad that I felt myself dehydrating and because I really had to appetite to eat, my blood sugar went down really low I think. Combined with the dehydration, I think my blood pressure went down as well, so much so that I actually blacked-out in the bathroom after one of LS episode and knocked my head on the wall. Lucky thing was I didn't lose consciousness, and still managed to get out of the bathroom and yelled for Hubby. Figured that I really lost too much water (plus I was BFing Fer I guess), I got Hubb to go buy the rehydration salts and started to hydrate myself. At first I thought that it was just a case of food poisoning, but I came down with the fever in the night, thus I guess it would be an infection of some sort.

Today is slightly better. Still can't do plain water, the water that goes in comes out in about 10 minutes. The rehydration mix is better, at least the water stays in. Still having some runs, but much lesser. Tummy cramps every now and then but all is good.

Didn't go see a doctor and self-medicated. Tried Dhamotil, but that didn't really stop the runs After 3 doses, I decided not to continue anymore in case I wind up with constipation. Bought Lacteol-Fort. I think this really works. The runs stopped after the first sachet. I guess probiotics the way to treat diarrhoea huh.

Happy New Year! & Kiefer is 8 months old!

Celebrated the last day of the year at Long Beach Seafood! Yummy food! It's been a long time since we really splurged on dinner.

And here's our adorable darling Fer Fer! He is 8 months old already! He's quite a chatty fella, and really good and holding on to his property! Whenever anyone takes away something that he is playing with, he's sure to "complain, complain, complain" (i.e. yelling) till someone gives it back to him or gives him something else to play with!

I've been giving him a variety of foods to try and some new stuff include:

1. carrots
   
2. plain yoghurt
   
3. tofu
   
4. papaya
   
5. brown rice (Nestle & TCM blend)

And now that he is 8 months old, I'm going to start him on broccoli and flaxseed this month.

One last post for the year!

It's been a good 2008 with a great Hubby and 2 wonderful boys. Just looking forward to 2009, especially as Fer is really growing up so quickly. Looking forward to all the outings/ fun we'll be having and all the running after the boys that we have to do! :)

Happy new year everyone!

Will end off with some funny stuff that our boys get up to (usually it's just Kieran, and him getting his brother into them!).

 

Our boys grow up...

... too quickly.

No more... xxx

Kieran has a bad habit of licking his fingers and smearing saliva all over his fingers recently. So we tell him if he does that again, we'll put la-la (chilli) on his fingers. So whenever he does does that we'll go "Daddy (or Mummy)! Bring La La!!" and he'll go "No more la la!!!" And we'll pretend to scramble and run to the fridge to get the chilli sauce and then have a good laugh about it.

The "No more xxx!!" extends to almost everything actually. e.g.

Dinner time

M: What do you (Kieran) want to eat for dinner? Noodles?

K: No more noodles! No noodles!

M: Sushi?

K: No more sushi!

M: Pasta?

K: No more As...ta!!

M: yes , pasta

K: No Yes!!

M: ??? :P

My sweet baby...

Lying in bed with Kieran (in his own room) trying to get him to sleep.

M: *yawns*

K: Mummy tired..

This is the first time I've heard him use the word "tired" and used correctly!

K: accidently knocks his head on the headboard.

M: is it ouchy? pain pain? *rubs his head*

5 mins later

M: tries to ignore him and pretends to be sleeping as he tries to get out of his bed.

K: *lightly taps his head on the headboard* Mummy, pain pain.

M: ignores and pretends to sleep

K: *lightly taps his head on the headboard again* Mummy, pain, pain.

M: ignores again

K: *smacks his palm on the bed with a whack* Mummy, pain, pain.

M: :P

Mummy lies on the floor next to Kieran's bed and pretends to sleep.

K: *climbs off the bed and lies next to Mummy, puts arms around Mummy and smiles*

M: *smiles back* :D

The boys' room

The room is more or less completed. I guess other things will slowly come along when we find them.  Kieran likes the room a lot (phew!). We put in tables under the window where he could place his toys. Tonight is the 2nd night that he is sleeping in the room. We are rather surprised that he didn't resist as much as we had expected him to. Then again, it's only the 2nd night. As much as I'm glad that he is going into his own room, I kind of miss having him sleeping next to me in my bed. :( Yup, my baby's growing up. 

Kiefer will join his Kor Kor in their bedroom very soon. Probably when school starts. Now I'm quite lazy to wake at 530am and walk over for his morning feed. Fer will probably be easy. Afterall, he falls asleep on his own all the time. We just have to put him in bed with his pacifier and a cloth nappy/ blanket, he roll around a bit, sniffs his nappy and zzzzz... We may have to move his cot over for him as he does roll around a bit when he wakes up. I don't think the small rail on the toddler bed is going to stop him from falling onto the floor.

That's Fer Fer napping in his bed yesterday afternoon.

 

Added photos of the boys on the wall. Kieran loves the 2 posters that we framed for him. His current cartoon favourite is WALL-E anyway. He'll look at the poster and says WALL-E/ EVE  and he sounds exactly like WALL-E in the movie!! But he refers to the poster as Fer's cos it sits above Fer Fer's bed. (Kieran chose the bed nearer to the window himself). He loves the Cars poster as well and since these posters were only $10 each, we figure we can always change them when a new favourite comes along. 

The vinyl stickers on the wardrobe were bought in HK on our last day there. Chanced upon a hawker selling them of a makeshift "table-stall" at Mong Kok MTR station. Only HK$10 for both. I didn't know that they were vinyl stickers when I bought them. Thought that they were regular stickers. Turns out, these vinyl stickers are really good. Kieran can actually tear them off and put them back onto the glass. Quite durable.

Anyway, we went down to Spotlight and picked up 3 patterned cotton fabric (Cars, Bob & Nemo) to make sheets for their beds. Gotta find time to get down to doing it!!

Right, 2 nights down, many more to go. Hopefully he really, really likes sleeping in his own room. *crossing fingers*

Project Clean Up House

We've been back from Shanghai for a week already but I still haven't found the time to really blog about it. So what have been busy with? 

We've been trying to clear up clutter in the house and started this project before we left for Shanghai and we are now frantically trying to complete Project Clean Up House before Christmas next week. 

Stuff that have either been completed or going to be attended to include:

Bought new shelves to house all the stuff lying around the study and the guest room. Things that we use all the time will be put onto these shelves. My scrapbooking stuff takes up 2 shelves out of the 15 there.

In order to move me out of his space (cos he says that I clutter the table), we've gotten another table and put it in the other side of the room. And because I use the iMac most of the time now (and he got himself a macbook), it now sits on my table!! :D I love the little extendable table on the right side! Gives me extra space when I need it!

The last thing to be done is to really clear out the guest room to convert it into the boys room. We've cleared out most of the things in there already. The biggest item, which was the queen sized bed was given to our neighbour, and that really freed up a lot of space in the room. In order to properly empty the room, we had to throw things out from our storeroom (bomb shelter) to make space for the stuff that cluttered the guest room. I guess all is good cos we were just throwing and throwing. We followed the "if you didn't think about/know/use it in the last 5 years, chances are it's never ever going to be used". Once we did that, we found that we really had a lot of room in the store. All our suitcases can now go into the store!

Once the guest room is cleared out, I've got to give it a good cleaning and move in the little toddler bed that sis is giving me. Also, we will move the playpen in there as Fer's bed for a while before we shift the cot over. We figure it's gonna be tough getting Kieran to sleep with Fer in their own room. Wish us luck!

On top of cleaning up the house, I also spent about 2 days compiling the photos of our trip on iPhoto to send for printing. Hopefully it'll be ready by Christmas eve. And, I've got to start preparing work stuff!! :(

Merry Christmas everyone!

Kiefer is 7 months old..

and we are all flying to Shanghai tomorrow!!! Yipee!!

So how is our little boy doing now? He is now a very vocal and talkative baby. Loves to make this guttural, throaty sound and responses when you start making them. He also squeals to catch our attention, especially when there is no one near him! He grabs at anything and everything around him and puts them in his mouth! It is just so amusing to see him holding a blanket or a nappy cloth in his hands when you clearly remember moving everything away from him when you first put him down! You just wonder how on earth he got to them! Also, he loves to cover himself with a nappy or a blanket and then give you a cheeky smile when you lift it off his face! He do it again and again, just waiting for someone to pull the nappy off him and he'll give a very sheepish smile!

On the pooping end, since he started on solids, he poops a little more often. However, since I introduced yoghurt to him, he kinda stopped pooping again!! :( I didn't want to massage his tummy today cos I didn't want him pooping on the flight tomorrow!! So I got to remember to massage his tummy when we reach Shanghai tomorrow!! the good thing is that, his tummy still feels soft. 

Updates on the eating? He has since tried:

avocado

rice cereal

sweet potato (not too good)

pears (Earth's Best)

peach (Earth's Best)

oatmeal cereal (Healthy Times)

bananas

plain yoghurt (mixed with bottled peach)