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)

Fer's 1st trip outta country!

Went to Melaka for 2 nights (26 - 28 Nov) with hubb's parents. It's been about 5 years since we last went Melaka and well, everything looks and feels pretty much the same! It's Kiefer's first trip out of Singapore, kinda like a prelude to our Shanghai/HK trip next week. 

It was a 3 hour drive to Melaka, and we didn't needed to stop along the way and got there at about lunch time. Checked into Hotel Equatorial and had lunch at the Peranakan restaurant (Seri Nyonya). The food was pretty good actually. We ate there also because we had F&B credits to spend.

And since the kids slept all the way there, we had the entire afternoon to walk Jonker Street and visit Christchurch & St Paul's Church. Kieran loved the fountain there and was just so excited. Anyway, we finished all the sight-seeing the first afternoon we were there!!! Haha.. We even had time to go back to the hotel room for a late afternoon nap before heading to Dataran Pahlawan for some shopping and dinner. Dinner was at this Hong Kong food restaurant in Pahlawan. All I can say is that the food was... ahem..

 

Since we were done with all the sightseeing on the 1st day, the 2nd day was simply spent on shopping, shopping and more shopping. we bought some clothes at the FOS, Brands outlet and Reject Shop. Not as great shopping as we would have at Gilroy, but good enough! ;) 

On the way into Melaka, we kept seeing signs that said "Eye on Malaysia" so we went hunting for it and saw the ferris wheel. Kieran started going "wheel! wheel!" and so we went up on it. It was RM$20 per adult, RM$17 for seniors, children under 3 go free. It was way smaller than our flyer and it turns much faster. 1 ride was about 5 revolutions. Nothing much to see from up there, except for the surrounding construction and the ship in the sea. Nonetheless, Kieran still enjoyed looking at the boats/ship from up there.

2nd night's dinner at Beizhan was great! (Thanks Blee for the recommendation.) The dinner was only RM$90+. Very worth it indeed!!

 

Here are our 2 boys on the final morning, having fun on a patch of carpet grass just outside Dataran Pahlawan.

 

Just for the record, Kieran was pretty well-behaved on this trip, except for that he actually bit Fer on his toes on both nights!! He got it bad from us the 2nd time he did it and I think he actually learnt not to do that. He was just lying there fiddling with Fer's toes when he suddenly nipped him! It was exactly how he used to bite Hubb at 1 point! Naughty Kieran!!

Strong legs!

Fer's able to stand up with his feet flat on the ground with little support! I now bathe him standing up and I'll usually support him under the armpit. I realise that he can actually stand pretty well as I do not really need to hold him. I just have to put my hand under his armpit and he stands!! I don't actually need to hold him. He stood even when I just put my thumb under him. He can stand like that for about 1-2 mins while I rinse him down!! 

What's for dinner?

Didn't know what to eat for dinner and Hubb was out playing soccer. So whipped up this broccoli/sweet potato/ tofu omelet for Kieran!

Peek-A-Boo!

Kieran: Peek-A-Boo!

Kiefer: *smiles*

Kieran: Boo!

Kiefer: *bigger smile*

Kieran: *hides & jumps up* Boo!

Kiefer: laughs!!!

Finally scrapped Kieran's 1st day at Kindy!

Kit: Peppermint Creative Kindergarten Crafts

it's Shrek!

Hubby ripped loads of music/songs into the iPod and played it in the car. Within the 1st second of the start of the 1st track, Kieran yelled, "Shrek!". It wasn't the theme song in Shrek, it was only one of the songs in Shrek. Both Hubb and I only knew that it was a song from the soundtrack cos 1) he played the song from the album and so he knew what he was playing, 2) we only recognised the song only after another 10s into it.  

How did he know?!! I think he's been watching too much TV!! But he hasn't been watching Shrek recently! His current favourite is Monsters Inc.

Then & Now

More on sweet potato intolerance

Though sweet potato is usually suggested as a suitable starting food (low allergenicity risk) for weaning babies onto solids, there ARE incidences of intolerances and allergies!!

Read this  blog article on sweet potato intolerance. This lady also googled like I did and I read all the articles that she read as well!! Ha. Aren't mothers similar?!

I am going to try it with Fer again this weekend to confirm. Hubby said it was simply because I gave him too much!

Another useful article on weaning here!

Foods that Kiefer has tried and has no adverse reactions to:

1. Rice cereal (Nestle)
2. Avocado
3. Pears (Earth's Best)
4. Peach (Gerbers)

As far as possible, I give Fer homemade foods, but if I use bottles, I'll try to give either Earth's Best or Healthy Times. But these 2 brands are not really easy to buy (i.e. NTUC don't really carry them, so far I bought them from Market Place). These were the brands that I gave Kieran the last time and they are organic with no added stuff. Great stuff but expensive here though. The last time, we bought most of the bottled foods when we were in the US. And since we are not going this year, I've got to buy them locally and this means more $$ and less variety. :(

A little flower...

Made this awhile ago and then gave it to Janelle cos she simply looks cuter in it! Got the design from mycakies, but of cos, hers are way, way, way more beautiful!!

Sweet potato intolerance?

Gave Kiefer some pureed orange sweet potato for lunch yesterday. About half a cube of it. He quite like it and finished all of it. The rest of the day went as normal, he had his milk and had 2 tbsp (dry) of rice cereal for dinner at 530pm. 

Woke up at 530am to feed him his morning milk. He was a little fussy after finishing his milk and could not settle to sleep. I thought he wanted to nurse more and tried to latch him on again. But he vomited a huge amount of milk out instead. Wet our bed and had to pull the bed spread up. I thought he was dry and thus left him on his own bed but he didn't get back to sleep. Hubb got up to check on him and realised that he was all wet. He must have regurgitated again I think. So now I had to strip his bed and wash the mattress! Then he did a poop and Hubb cleaned that up. And 2 major burps (more like belches). And then I thought it might have been the sweet potato cos Kiefer was already a gassy baby and sweet potatoes can cause gas too. Came online to google on the topic for about 10min, went back in and found that he had pooped again! The poop was soft and slightly darker (I think it's just the solids he's been eating) than usual, but not watery.  

So now I'm not too sure if it was the sweet potato that caused the gassiness or that he didn't drink his milk properly. 

He just belched again!

Kiefer is sitting up!

Kiefer can sit up unsupported and stay in the position for a long, long, long time!! And now that he can roll over, he tend to sleep on his side all the time. Even when I turn him onto his back, he somehow rolls onto his side again in the middle of the night!

I gave him some avocado to taste yesterday and he seem to really like it! the first time I gave it to him, I watered it down with water. Today, I watered it down with BM and he slurped it all up even though it was right after his milk feed. There was about 1 tablespoonful of avocado. Now I feed him 2 meals a day. Once at lunch and once at dinner. I try to give him the new food at lunch so that I'll have the rest of the day to watch for any reactions. I think I'll try bananas or sweet potato this weekend!

He is not waking up much at night for milk anymore. Most nights, he sleeps from about 9pm till about 4am in the morning when he stirs for milk. Sometimes he'll fall back asleep once I give him his pacifier till about 6am when I pick him up for a feed before I take a shower and get ready for work. So he is in effect sleeping about 6-9hrs at a stretch without feeding already. And this was even before I started giving him cereals.

At the last Dr's visit for his Hep B 2nd dose, he weighed 7.83kg & is 64cm in length. I think he is growing rather well!!

Rolled over or slid down?

Fer was lying in the MIDDLE of the queen sized mattress when I left the room to go attend to Kieran who was crying (he just woke up from his reluctantly-taken nap). When I returned to the room in less than 2 minutes later...

Anyway, as Kieran would say.. "fall down"... :P He somehow managed to slide off the mattress and landed nicely on his bum! He just sat there and waited. I didn't hear him cry or anything. In fact he even had a cheeky smile for me when I came into the room and saw him in that position! As I was getting the camera, he started sliding lower and lower. His head would have reached the ground if I were to leave him be for another minute! :P

It was funny, but now gotta start watching out for him and putting up all the bed rails...

Kiefer at 6 months old!

Today is the 3rd day that Fer has been eating cereal. I gave him about 1 tsp of dry cereal blended with about 20/30ml of EBM, once a day. He is starting to know to eat the food and not try to push it out of his mouth now. 

Now that he can roll over, he is starting to sleep on his side! We put him on his back to sleep at night, but he will turn onto his side some time in the middle of his sleep.

Here's Fer Fer at 6 months old!

Kiefer is 6 months old & eating for the FIRST time!

 

 

Gave him about 1 tsp of Nestle Rice Cereal blended with breastmilk. He didn't really like it at first. I think he must be wondering what  on earth was shoved into his mouth!! But I think he was ok with it in the end. Gotta try again tomorrow!!