Little beginnings

Swim school

2012-02-12T00:08:00.004+11:00

Hayley started her first swimming lesson this year. One hour a week. This is at the local swimming pool. Her instructor's a Korean, and there are 4-5 kids to one instructor. She's the only girl, and the only one who doesn't speak Korean. I think she can learn Korean at the same time because the instructor speaks Korean to the other kids.

First lesson, spent most of the time overcoming her fear of water. Her fear is not having the security of the boat floatie or Mommy/Daddy to hang on to.

By the end of the first lesson, she's less afraid of going into the water. Here she's more than happy to get back to the pool by herself to practice what she learnt after the class ended.
Julian goes along and watch Hayley by the pool side. He has a lot of patience. He's too young for this swim school so we'll wait till maybe next year for him to learn.

Milestone : Starting Kinder

2012-02-11T23:22:00.003+11:00

I was once this tiny.... photo taken in Jan 2008

and now I'm this BIG.... four years later, ready for first day of school !!

Hayley started school at 4 years 10 months. She's confident and excited about starting school.

This is the summer school uniform - we need to get summer, winter & sports uniform. Uniforms are expensive. One summer tunic costs $52 each. Hayley has two of these only, so I handwash during the week. Winter uniform is even more expensive - they need a shirt, a winter tunic, tie and a pullover.

First week of school was only four half days, started on Tuesday, finishes at 12pm each day as a transitioning week. Second week of school, Hayley came home with three questions that caught me by surprise. What is the meaning of selfish (that's easy to explain); what is the meaning of sexy (why would a kindergarten kid use that word?), and Mommy why won't you give me money for canteen. My friends buy stuff from the canteen. The next day I gave her $1 to buy anything she likes from the school canteen. She came home with 10 cents change, and told me she bought a packet of chips.

Everyday I pack her a big lunch and a small lunch. Small lunch is a fruit box, so that's not hard. The big lunch is a challenge. I prepare the night before because mornings are too rushed. It's been mostly sandwiches - leftover BBQ chicken filling, ham and mayo, kaya (coconut jam). Not allowed to have any nut products so can't do Nutella. The one day I packed her angel hair pasta, she hardly ate any. I better stick with sandwiches or cold lunches.

Meet Diego #2

2012-01-23T22:38:00.006+11:00

Last time I blogged about our first pet (Julian's 3rd birthday), I said Diego, the fish's days are numbered. That was at the end of September. Less than four months later, Diego died. I don't want to talk about the details, but let's just say I killed it. I felt so bad, I kept apologising to Julian. He didn't understand why I caused his fish to die. He does understand death - something dies then it's gone. The fish was a present from my brother. When he saw my brother, Julian said to him, "My Mommy do to my fish". He meant to say, mommy killed my fish. So sweet of him to not use the word kill.

I packed away the fish tank cos I dont want to be reminded of what I've done, and especially didn't want the kids to remind me when they see an empty tank. But everywhere I looked, I see reminders of Diego. Poor fish.

Today we went to the pet shop and got a new fish. We purposely didn't choose a blue one. It wouldn't be right to replace Diego and forget all about him. We got an orange Siamese fighting fish instead and some toys for him. He eats flakes & blood worms. Not a fussy eater.

The kids couldn't decide on a name for him. Long live Diego #2. Hayley named the fish Boy, after her brother!

2 weeks later: I finally got the courage to change the tank water. I never got over losing Diego #1, so still paranoid about what might happen to Diego #2.

Julian also finally named Diego #2. His name is Dora, and it's a she. One day I looked at the fish tank, and said "Boy, would you like to eat worms?". Julian heard and said, I'm Boy. I said, you never named this fish, so I call him Boy ok? That was when he was forced to come up with a name. He said to me, "Blue fish made you sad Mommy. Red (looks orange to me) fish makes you happy".

Confidence in reading

2012-01-14T22:58:00.001+11:00

In the past, I've tried to get Hayley to read from the many children's books that we have. It was hard to hold her attention for more than 5 seconds and when she struggles to read, I get frustrated, and when I get frustrated, NO ONE is having fun anymore.

SIL lent us the Peter and Jane Ladybird book series maybe half a year or more ago. At the time, I did try to get Hayley to read but she wasn't interested at all. It was also disheartening for both of us when she isn't able to read so she would rather not attempt and I gave up trying as well.

Tonight, she was reading the first book in the series. As she recognised most of the words, I could see she was getting great satisfaction out of being able to show me that she can read the book fluently from cover to cover. She was amazed with her own capability, that she could read out each page.

Weight recording

2012-01-10T00:19:00.005+11:00

I don't keep track of the kids' milestones. Every day comes & goes and I don't remember most of their achievements. For today, I will just record their weight.

Hayley today (4 years 9 months 2 weeks) in the morning weighed 19.7 kg. In the evening, she weighed 20.2 kg. I reckon the weight gain is 500g of poop in her! Still a struggle to get her to do her daily business. It's a struggle because we have to coax, bribe, negotiate, reward her for just sitting on the toilet. She never asks to sit. She has no sensation in the bowels it seems. Yet, her weight is above average. Eats a lot, but not much out.

Julian today (3 years 3 months 1 week) weighs 14.7 kg. His weight is on the lower percentile. Fussy eater. If he wasn't on the bottle, he'd be skinnier. He still takes full-cream cow's milk - one in the morning, one before daytime nap, one before nighttime sleep, and one/two in the middle of the night! About 200-250 ml each time. Yes, I still have a baby who doesn't sleep through the night! Hubs does the feeding, no different from when they were newborns. Hehehe.... lucky me, not so lucky Hubs. Julian doesn't drink milk when we're away from home. The only two places he has his milk are home and parents in law's home. He never asks for milk when we go away for holidays.

How do you like your eggs?

2012-01-08T15:14:00.002+11:00

Julian loves his eggs, but only hard-boiled - not scrambled, poached or fried. He could eat 1.5 for breakfast. Sometimes with a bit of soy sauce, but he doesn't mind if it's plain. Everytime he goes to MIL's place, he asks for egg. Even if he's already eaten egg at home.

Hayley doesn't like to eat eggs that much, only hard-boiled stewed grandma's style. My MIL makes this dish where she stews (I think that's what it's called) pork neck meat with hard-boiled egg. The sauce gets absorbed into the eggs giving it a flavour. That's the only time Hayley eats egg. She says, I only eat Ma's brown egg. Brown from the sauce.

Hong Kong 2011

2012-01-02T21:50:00.006+11:00

Hellooooooo 2012 !!! Where did 2011 go to ? I haven't blogged for a while so really wanted to catch up on blogging before going back to work. Here's a happy snap of us in Hong Kong, travel dates 14-Oct to 25-Oct 2011. We had a "challenging" start to the trip but it all ended well.

Hubs planned our HK holiday - he booked travel & accomodation, did all the planning on getting around. All I did was put in leave for October & next thing I knew, the holiday was just days away. Exactly four days from our departure date, I started being concerned about my passport expiry date. It was current, but with less than 6 months validity, I might not be allowed to travel. I said to Hubs let's risk it, the worse is, he goes to HK with the kids on his own. And I was secretly imagining freedom, home alone for 10 days! Yipee!! But no, the MOTH (Man of the House) says NO WAY. So I renewed my passport quickly by paying priority processing fee of $100 in addition to the normal fee. The next saga was Qantas baggage handlers going on strike the week we were travelling resulting in flights being cancelled. Everyday I was checking their website to see if our flight was affected.

Once we arrived in HK & settled down in the hotel, I emailed my parents this:

We arrived in HK already. I am NOT enjoying this trip so far. The flight was delayed 30 mins, that's nothing. During the flight, Julian's temperature increased. We gave him Neurofen at 5pm before we went to the airport bcos he was showing signs of sickness after childcare. During the flight, we have no Neurofen cos it was checked in. Mama will be saying, "I told you so". (My mum reminded me numerous times to bring the kids' medicine on hand luggage). Qantas only had Panadol for adults, so we broke it into smaller pieces and fed it to Julian with chocolate. During the 9 hr flight, now and again he would throw a tantrum, crying & be unreasonable (eg I want to go home). He couldn't sleep & can't get into a comfortable position to sleep. Passengers were all sleeping, and one stupid passenger behind shushed us. STUPID, u think i like to have an unsettled kid ? Hayley ALSO developed a fever during the flight!! (can you imagine having two kids with fever on an overseas night flight without medicine on hand?!!). Hayley was not as difficult to settle down. She didn't cry loudly or yell out unreasonable things. Julian was just so hard to control. Vincent & I hardly slept. I swear no more overseas holidays until they're 18, they can travel on their own.

The flight arrived HK 6am, and we couldn't check in the hotel till 12pm. So we sat in the hotel foyer for a looooooooong time with two sick kids. We fed them Neurofen after we collected the baggage at the airport but when the medicine started to wear out, they get grumpy and fever returns. They keep complaining. I am so fed up. We haven't done a thing except deal with the kids' sickness. Julian's behaviour is hard to control. Cannot reason with him. Very annoying. Right now he's throwing another tantrum. We are better off staying at home.

That's a snippet of the initial part of our trip. Things did improve. We all slept for 12 hours as soon as we hit the beds. The kids were only sick to torture us on the plane. The next morning, both woke up with no fever. They were laughing & playing like normal! Our first destination is Disneyland. We toured Disneyland over 2 days. The park isn't very big at all, most adults I reckon will see & do everything in a day but it's suitable for kids under five.

Besides Disneyland, we went to Ocean Park, lunched with my high school friends, breakfast with Disney characters. Lots of eating & shopping, every night was Fa Yuen Market for me as it's closest from the hotel that we were staying. A hundred photos were taken, and really need to go through them to remind myself what else we did.

Diplomatic 3 yo

2011-12-29T23:53:00.004+11:00

Hayley likes to compare fairness of her skin with mine. Often she would place her arm or leg, or face next to mine and ask whose is fairer - mine or hers. And often I would say I'm fairer cos I don't go out in the sun as much as her. And often she would disagree with me because she wants to be the fairer one.

Today we had the same conversation, this time with Julian sitting nearby. As usual, we disagreed on who's the fairer one, so I got Julian involved.

Mommy: Julian, you're the mirror mirror on the wall ok? Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the fairest of them all. Me or Hayley?

Hayley looked at Julian, and pointed at herself expecting him to say Hayley.

There was a pause, brief silence. You can see Julian was thinking. You'd think he'll answer either Hayley or Mommy but no.... he said...

FROSTY!! (and pointed to the Frosty figurine standing next to the Xmas tree in the house)

What a diplomatic answer!!!!! At 3 yrs old he already knows how to answer women's trick questions. Next time he gets a question Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat, he'll have the "right" answer.

Daycare Xmas Party 2011

2011-12-16T22:01:00.002+11:00

This is Hayley's last Christmas Party at daycare before she goes to Kindy next year. These are her "favourite friends". I wouldn't call them best friends because I don't think they are quite best friends. She likes to play with them and she tells me she likes them so that makes them her favourite friends. All three are starting at different schools.

Julian performing Jingle Bells with his classmates. This summer must be the coolest summer that I can recall. Julian is wearing long-sleeve with a vest! He is likely to be doing Jingle Bells three years in a row if we keep him in the same daycare. Because he's born in Sept, he can't start school until 2014. I worry about him being bored. The school system in NSW has a cut off of July. Your child can start Kindergarten at the beginning of the school year if they turn five on or before 31 July in that year. Julian turns five in Sep 2013 so he's missed the cut off for 2013.

Poor Julian. I have been telling him that in the new year, Hayley won't be going to childcare. She's going to big school. And he's staying in the baby class (non-preschoolers) whilst his cousins are moving up to the pre-schoolers class. He asked me, "But why Mommy?", with a sad pitiful face.

11.11.11 Wedding

2011-11-11T21:56:00.001+11:00

11.11.11 ... what an easy date to remember. It was a relative's wedding and it was a Friday. Wonder if 12.12.12 will be just as popular.

Here is a picture of Julian with Cousin Bailey at the wedding reception. The third musketeer, Cousin Toby is hiding somewhere. They were all dressed up for the occasion. I bought the formal suit for Julian from our last HK trip. It was only AUD 20 for three-piece suit - vest, trousers & jacket. Fully-lined, immaculate workmanship, design, cut & fabric were top standards. Even if he wears it once only, it's worth the 20 bucks!

Hayley's dress was also from HK - AUD25. I bought this without bringing her along. Hayley has a lot of opinion on what she wears nowadays. She doesn't like dull colours - definitely no black. She loves dresses that flares out - the more it flares, the better. It has to be girly-looking. If something looks like a boyish design or colour, she doesn't want it. When I saw this dress, I loved the material & it was perfect for a summer wedding. It came in an adult version as well. The sales girl tried to convince me to buy a mother-daughter set! No, I didn't get sucked in.

Cousin Edwin

2011-11-04T21:52:00.000+11:00

Hi Cousin Edwin, I wonder if you follow my blog?!!

Everyone, meet my cousin from the US on a visit to Australia last Oct. The last time I saw him, he was learning to walk. That was something like 25 years ago!! Timing of his trip was perfect. We'd just returned from HK and I'm glad my kiddies get to meet my cousin. Photo here was the farewell dinner for him.

Julian's 3rd - the presents

2011-10-11T23:02:00.008+11:00

First of all, thank you to everyone who came and celebrated Julian's 3rd birthday with us (and those who cant make it but sent their well-wishes). The kids had so much fun and the fun continued on for more than a week, because everyday there was a new present to open. I didn't want them to open all the presents in one go. Julian didn't mind not opening them, he would walk past his nicely wrapped presents & not ask to open. It's big sister Hayley who gets excited. It's become her birthday presents, she'd insist she gets to play with a toy first.

Creativity toy, building zoo buddies

Stereo sound animal book

Julian's first remote control dinosaur. I like to make it chase after him. This one goes slow, and still he gets scared

Lego - Julian's favourite piece in this set is.... the SHARK that came with it

ABC Phonics - this one forms 3 letter words, excellent for Hayley. Hayley's quite good with spelling (in my opinion, not sure what level her age should be). She can spell "apple" because it's the first word on the ABC learning chart that's on the toilet wall, where she spends a LOT of her evenings in. Can spell "mum", "dad", "Julian", "dog", "God" (cos I said it's the reverse of dog hehee) and of course "lolly". I recently realised that I'd forgotten to teach Julian how to spell his name. Hayley could spell hers at 33months.

"Sheriff on Duty" shirt. Julian loves it because of the cow patches

The RC dinosaur was opened first (purple one). And the kids complained why they didn't get the triceratops that appeared on the back of the box. They fought over playing with the purple one until the next day, they opened another dinosaur, and it was a triceratops (blue one) !! Look at the excitement on Hayley's face

Julian's first pet. Also became MY first pet. It's a Siamese fighting fish and it hasn't eaten since the day we got it. The set came with flakes as its food, but it refuses to eat. I even went to the garden to look for mosquito larvae. I don't know what else I can do. Every time I check on it, I am paranoid that it'll be floating belly up. Julian named him, "Diego". I think Diego's days are numbered.

Lego set - his favourite is the car that I built. I find that Julian doesn't play with this set himself, I think because it's too hard for him. But he's happy to play with it if I sat down with him & gave him directions. His teacher's observation was the same, that he's a perfectionist. If he knows he can't do something well, he just won't do it

Different sort of construction toy, it's an easy click-clack piece

An easel, with blackboard & magnetic board on the other side

Julian's 3rd - the Jumping Castle

2011-10-11T22:44:00.003+11:00

Hayley has been looking forward to Julian's birthday for weeks & weeks. She knew we were gonna get a jumping castle for his party (or jumping barnyard in this case). What she didn't understand was the word "hire". The castle man came in at 8am to set it up. Party started late morning, and all the kids, 20 of them roughly, I lost count, had a go - not all at the same time of course. Close to 3pm, grey clouds came. Days before, the weather forecast said "severe weather warning" for the long weekend. Rain, hail or shine, the castle man was coming because we'd paid the deposit & no cancellation, or you'd lose the deposit. God heard my prayers because the weather was clear throughout the party, and only at the end, it actually started to hail! By then, the kids were tired and/or bored with the castle, so good timing :)

When the castle man came to collect the castle at the end of the day, Hayley didn't understand why he took it away. I said, it's because I didn't buy the castle, it was hired. That's when she asked, why you didn't buy it. What does hire mean?

Castle has a big slide

Julian's 3rd - the birthday cake

2011-10-11T22:21:00.003+11:00

Julian loves animals, so I was thinking of making him a cake that's a big tiger face. When I looked at the recipe, it wasn't easy, not for beginners like me. So I opted for this. Just a butter cake (that I did from scratch, no packet mixes). The next day I covered the entire cake with butter cream (again, made from scratch) and then created grass using fine dessicated coconut with green colouring. Then added choc fingers as the fence (Hubs was strongly discouraging me from putting too many fingers, so I had them spread out a bit). The front bit is not broken fence, it's meant to be the gate, except I made a crooked gate. Horses are from Julian's collection, not edible!

This was the reaction when Julian first saw the cake

Julian turns 3 - Celebration at Day care

2011-10-11T22:05:00.002+11:00

I baked mini cupcakes for Julian to take to daycare. I was exploring with icing and started with the letter J, and figured it's much easier to repeat the same letter than stuff up while trying to do something fancy. This is the end-product.

This time, I remember charging the camera battery for the teachers to take some photos of the day. For Hayley's 4th birthday, after 2 photos, the battery went flat. Final year for Hayley at this daycare before she heads off to big school next year

Julian with sister & cousins. All four in the same daycare. Julian got a bigger cake than the rest, this one's my SIL's recipe, Nutella cupcake.

With the rest of the class. There's a child there with the last name Del Popolo. Julian struggled to pronounce it, and he calls the boy "xxx the buffalo".

Super Baby on the Milk Bottle

2011-09-26T23:21:00.004+10:00

Julian follows a strict routine for his bottle time. Yes, this nearly 3 yo who still sleeps in a baby cot is still on the baby bottle. He takes about 250 mls 2-3 times a day. Doesn't eat much, loves his milk bottle so we keep him on it.

This is his routine that he created. It goes like this:

1. Get the brown beanbag. We have green & red as well, but he must have the brown one.
2. The brown beanbag has a picture of an owl and three green circles. He has to have them placed facing up so he can see them. And the beanbag has to be placed facing Jesus on the cross which is up on the wall.
3. When beanbag is in the right position... he'll say "I see owl, hoot hoot. I see green circle, another green circle, and another green circle"
4. "Can I jump like a kangaroo?" and expects you to acknowledge his question with either a nod or yes, before he starts jumping like a kangaroo around the beanbag.
5. "Can I fly like Superman?" & flies back to his original position
6. "Can I jump like a frog?", crunches down & does ribbit ribbit sound as he goes around the beanbag second time round
7. Finally, "Can I jump on the beanbag?" and he throws himself on the beanbag.

It is an odd routine and we didn't create it. He started it himself and keeps adding more to the routine. No routine no milk. And only does it at home.

Magician's Little Assistant

2011-09-26T22:53:00.006+10:00

Last weekend, we also attended a friend's kids' birthday party - for two September brothers. I have two brothers whose bdays are a day apart in Sept. A nephew in Sept and a son in Sept. September has soooo many babies!!

They had a clown-cum-magician for entertainment.

This is Hayley volunteering to be the magician's assistant. Last time we went to another birthday party, she raised her hand and was so eager to participate. She followed the clown's instructions to assist in some magic act, she answers when asked questions. She chuckles, she giggles. All eyes were on her and all the attention doesn't bother her one bit. She was not shy at all. She is not like Mommy at all!!! I would've gone beetroot red with all the attention and I would definitely not have raised my hand. I'm so proud of my little girl.

These cool glasses were gifts in the party bags. Hayley being the sensible one, asked me to open the party bag and said, "I won't ask for the L-O-L-L-Y. I just want to get the glasses inside". Of all words, she can spell lolly second best (after her own name). She spells it out so Julian won't know what she's referring to. As soon as Julian hears the word lolly, he will insist we give it to him. What's funny is, I spelt it out to Hubs when Hayley was younger so she won't know what we're talking about and that's how she learnt the spelling!

First Iced Biscuits

2011-09-26T22:36:00.002+10:00

I was going to bring some cupcakes for my friend's baby shower on the weekend but decided to challenge myself with baking biscuits instead. Actually, I don't know what's the difference between cookies & biscuits. Don't they mean the same thing - one's British, one's Australian? The recipe book that I followed was from the UK and they called it biscuits. I happened to have a cookie cutter in the shape of a bird - signifies new life, spring, nesting - something to do with my friend's precious that she's baking in her own oven - so I decided to use that.

Took me all night (my night starts at 10pm after the kids go to bed) to get the three trays of biscuits baked. Then the next morning, woke up early to do the icing and this is the end result.

Saturday morning, I heard Julian calling out from his cot. Yes, this nearly 3-y.o. boy is still trapped in a baby cot. He never asked for a big bed and doesn't mind being caged up.

I opened his bedroom door to get him. And first thing he said to me was, "I wanna eat cake". The smell of last night's baking must've lingered in the air. I said, "Oh, I don't have cake. But I have biscuits!". When he saw them, he called them "chicks", not birds.

Here's my No.1 fan enjoying the first of a few biscuits for the weekend. He ate the most.

King of the Jungle turning THREE

2011-09-10T23:40:00.004+10:00

Julian with his paper crown on, announces "I'm King of the Jungle" ... ROARRRRR!!!

Concentrating on his Lego creation - he can spend a long time & be very focused. Potential architect? Ask him what he's built, he'll say things like a castle, a bridge, highest tower

Showing me one of his creations using the mini-Lego set

Playing with Hayley. He stopped calling Hayley jeh-jeh (big sister) a few months ago. Probably influence of childcare. Even when we ask him to say jeh-jeh he purposely says Hayley.

They keep each other company when Daddy & Mommy are busy

Copy cats

2011-09-10T23:28:00.003+10:00

Spontaneous day off

2011-07-27T22:58:00.004+10:00

Today Hubs & I took a day off work. It was only decided yesterday. We felt that we deserved a break. After dropping off the kids at daycare, we both went to Cabramatta for pho noodle soup. It's a Vietnamese noodle dish for those who don't know. I have to admit I missed the kids, like sitting down to eat the noodle, I thought to myself, if Hayley was here, she would've loved this. If Julian was here, he would've been tougher to feed. Hayley's a good eater, she eats pretty much anything & everything that we eat, including chicken feet, mussels, weird chinese herbal stuff. The only thing she doesn't eat is prawns only because she wants to follow me. I'm allergic to prawns so she claims she's the same. For the record, she's had prawns before when she was younger (when she didn't have a mind of her own!) and she did not have any allergic reaction. Julian, he is more fussy. If he had a spoonful of rice with meat & vegie, and he didn't like the vegie he would either spit out the whole mouthful or filter out the piece that he doesn't like. Some meals he skips if nothing suits him. Hence the reason why we're still keeping him on the milk bottle.

After brunch, we walked along the shops on John St and I found this women's clothing store that had $10 for 2 pieces items on the rack outside. That attracted my attention. I was conscious that I didn't want to get sucked in buying poor quality clothing that looks old after two washes. So I checked out the brandname. It's Jaqueine. Hey, that's the brand that was selling on Ozsale a couple months back. I added items to the cart but didn't check out. I haven't heard of the brand before so I googled it & found it's some China women's clothing brand which for some reason made it to Ozsale. I thought Ozsale was supposed to sell branded clothes. Anyway, I didn't buy from Ozsale bcos I didn't feel it's worth it for a China brand. This Cabra store had a whole store of Jaqueine clothes, items that I recognised & remembered were on Ozsale. I spent at least an hour there, no one was timing me or rushing me so I don't actually know how long I was there for. I came out $62 poorer with six pieces including two jackets! Bargain!! I still don't know how good/bad the quality of this brand is but I least I didn't have to pay for postage ($9.50 plus 50c for additional items on Ozsale) and I tried before I bought.

After hanging around in Cabra for 3 hours, we made our way home to unload the food stuff we bought and we headed off to our next destination, Costco. First week of opening in Sydney and we figured a weekday must surely be less crowded than the last weekend when it caused huge traffic congestion. First thing we had to do was queue up to get our photo done for the membership card. That didn't take too long. Once we got in, we walked around with no intention of buying bcos the check-out queues were a mile long. I didn't think the pricing was that much cheaper than other retailers, and most of their stuff are sold in bulk. I don't need 12 cans of tuna, that'll take me a year to finish. We left empty-handed as planned. At least we got our membership cards sorted so not a total waste of time.

Got home rested a bit, did a bit of laundry and it was time to pickup the kiddies from daycare. After dinner & bathtime, we decided to go back to Costco, this time with MIL as well. Bought heaps of stuff - bulk toilet-paper, bulk paper-towel, bulk eggs, bulk washing powder... bulk everything. Most of these were not for us. That's how we can maximise the membership, shop and share with the extended family.

By 8pm, the kids can't wait to go home. Daycare days are extra tiring for them. Hayley skipped her nap. I wonder if it's time for her to drop the daytime nap considering she's going to start school next year. When she's at home with me, I'd really love her to nap so there's a break for me to recharge!

Tomorrow back to work, have lots to catchup on. Having the day off doesn't mean I get one less day's work. It piles up. But never mind, today was a nice change from the daily rut.

Little Drummer Boy & Little Pony Girl

2011-07-24T22:45:00.005+10:00

I have been out of action from blogspot for quite a while haven't I? No motivation to blog. Dunno what to blog. Too lazy to get photos downloaded fm camera. Even this post's title was "plagiarised" from SIL. We went to bro's place for BBQ, SIL took the photos with her camera, downloaded to PC & emailed to me on the same afternoon. So I'm using her photos.

The kids had so much fun going through their cousin Isaac's toy corner. Isaac's 14 months old so he couldn't exactly play along with the cousins but it's funny that Julian is scared of Isaac. Julian thinks that Isaac will chase after him (even though Isaac's just learnt to walk). Julian thinks that Isaac wants his fav Miffy so each time Isaac comes near Miffy, Julian roars at him & snatches Miffy off.

I think Julian's favourite is the drum. He kept drumming away even though we told him Isaac was sleeping. He wasn't happy when we shushed him so he chucked the drum sticks onto the ground & said "I wanna go home". That's his character, he doesn't like to be told off.

Hayley didn't have a favourite toy, but she posed on the pony ride-on. This girl, we had a bit of drama recently with her. Should blog it so I'll remember. We went to my parents' place in Newcastle to visit my dad cos he had a mini-stroke. We didn't need to visit him in hospital because he was discharged the day that we went back. But instead we went to ER in Newcastle for Hayley. She slipped, fell & knocked her head so hard a lump came up within seconds. After three hours of observation, the doctor cleared her to go home. Four days later, back in Sydney, Hayley was in ER AGAIN. This time it's because since the weekend she's had a fever that kept coming back so we were worried it was something serious. After waiting for an hour in the waiting room next to kids who were vomitting, coughing, crying, the triage nurse assessed her condition & told us she's low priority. So we went home. Her fever didn't come back the day after.

33 m.o. funny pronunciation

2011-06-30T22:08:00.004+10:00

Julian is able to put words together into sentences quite well. If it's a new word, he learns what the word sounds like by watching your mouth and then repeats after you. He copies Hayley a lot and I often tease him by calling him a parrot or a copy cat. I understand most of what he says although at times I don't get it.

His pronunciation is unclear with some words and here are some funnies...

We have a wall picture frame above the change table which has Disney characters of Mickey Mouse and friends. When he lies on the change table he names all the characters' names. Instead of merely naming the names like Donald Duck, Goofy, he forms a sentence, except neither Hubs nor I can work out what he actually said.

What we heard:

Uncle Duck sleep with Daisy Duck

Mickey Mouse sleep with Minnie Mouse

He can't possibly have meant "sleep with" but that's what we heard!
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At daycare, I was looking at photos of Julian and his classmates so I asked him to name them. He named them all correctly - Ruby, Stephanie, Hoang May and then I heard Daisy. I thought hhmmm... I didn't know there was a Daisy in his class. I asked Hayley and she corrected Julian, "I think he meant to say Stacey". AHA.

So I told Hubs about this incident on the way to work. And he told me this story in return. The other day, Julian was asking me "where's my dick?". I was surprised... because we don't use the d word for his private bit. We call it in kuku in Chinese and I've heard him refer to it in Chinese too. So why would he ask "where's my dick?". That actually sounds rude to me and I'm blogging about it even!

Hubs was having fun with me by making me wonder why would Julian ask such a question. Finally he told me, he was looking for his stick, the stick that's attached to the balloons in the house. Ahhh... "where's my stick"!!! Julian's pronunciation of "st" sounds like a "d". Like Stacey sounded like Daisy.

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When he witnessed the wonders of wee coming out of his "stick", he used to say "It's working" wiht a big smile on his face, and I would always respond with, "of course it's working!! When does it not work?"

Lil Terror

2011-06-04T00:58:00.003+10:00

Julian does this lion roar sound very well. I couldn't get the video to upload so a photo will do. See in this photo how fierce he looks? When he wants to shoo someone away, he ROARS at them.

A typical evening on a weeknight

2011-06-04T00:09:00.007+10:00

When we come home from work after picking the kids from in-laws, the kids do what kids do - run a muck, play, watch TV. They spend very little of their waking hours at home on weekdays so they come home excited to see their toys.

A few weeks ago, Julian developed an interest in the educational computer keyboard that Hayley received as a present from Aunty Yen & Uncle Matt a few years ago. It's a keyboard that hooks up on the laptop with a USB cable. Frankly, Hayley hardly plays with it, nothing as much as Julian has. When he first started, he would sit next to Hayley and watch her play with it. Later, he sat in front of the keyboard but need someone to use the stylus pen to navigate where he wants to go. Within a week, he knew how to do it himself so we can leave him at the dining table and he'll play on his own for well... a long time. It entertains him long enough till we're done with what we need to do like eat dinner and wash up. When he wants to go on the computer, he'll say, "I want the computer".

Julian with Miffy the Bunny on Fisher-Price Fun-2-Learn Computer Cool School. Learning centres include reading, writing, math, art, music, and science. I would say his favourite is the science center. They teach about different kinds of environments and the plants and animals that live in them. Julian can choose to play games that test his knowledge and he feels a great sense of achievement when the computer compliments him. It'll say, "great work!", "how'd u know that?" when he gets the right answer.

While little brother (2 yrs 8 mths) is playing with a toy that's recommended for ages 3-6 yrs, Hayley (4 yrs 2 mths) is playing with a toy that's recommended for 18 months+. Funny isn't it? Hayley likes to go back to her baby days sometimes, like ask me to carry her like a baby, give her baby food to eat, use her baby spoon, baby whatever.

Notice the dining table has no room to be used for dining?!

Interview with the Principal

2011-05-18T19:58:00.004+10:00

Hayley had her first interview @ 4 years 1 month

On Tuesday, we went to see the principal at the Catholic Primary school. This is a private co-ed school that I would like Hayley and Julian to go to. Hubs isn't Catholic so it's more of my preference than his that our kids attend a Catholic school. He doesn't mind either public or private.

The school calls it an interview, but it's really laid-back & a relaxed chat with the principal. It's a chance for them to look at a checklist of things & behaviour eg find out if the child requires any special needs, if it's able to cater for the child's needs, what the parents expectations from the school.

The interview went as good as it possibly could have. Hayley was very matured in her responses to the principal. The three of us sat down at at the table in her office. The first test was to get her to do puzzles - 2 x wooden puzzle with pegs of about 5-6 pieces. Hayley completed the first one within seconds, and then said "too easy". I thought to myself, "Oh girl, don't say that out loud!". She repeated "too easy" after completing the second puzzle. I spoke to Hayley about being humble after the interview!

Next was a game of linking the monkeys. She was given a plastic barrel filled with monkeys and asked to create a chain of chimps by hooking them together. I think that's to test a child's co-ordination. The other tests were to get her to do counting, name shapes and colours, write her name, draw a picture, point to various body parts, holding a book the right way up. Hayley did all these fairly easily.

At the end after 30 mins, the principal shook Hayley's hand and said, "Congratulations, you're welcomed at St xxxx's school". We have the advantage that the principal goes to the same church as us and she'd seen us attend mass every weekend as preference is given to children from the parish.

Naughty corner

2011-04-28T23:35:00.002+10:00

Recently, the news talked about childcare centres banning naughty corners. Why would they do that? What is so wrong with sending naughty kids for time out? It works in our household.

Last nite, my tantrum-throwing 2.5 yr old boy had to be disciplined. Julian cried & screamed, stomping for no apparent reason. He could be over-tired from spending the day at daycare but whatever it was, he was just being unreasonable. Nothing pleased him. No bribery of lollies, toys, tv could calm him down. He was screaming the house down & it was driving me nuts. His good sister even tried to calm him down... she said: "Mommy, give him my lolly". I had enough of the tantrums and I did what I warned him. I said, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to throw you outside. The screams continued. So I opened the sliding door and out he went. Before anyone wants to call the authorities for child-abuse, I didn't physically THROW him. Lights on, he was placed to stand right next to the door, doors shut, he could see me & I can see him. He desperately tried to open the sliding door while continuously crying. After about 2 minutes (one minute for each year of their age according to Super Nanny), I took him in. I reminded him, if you cry again, I'm going to throw you outside.

The tantrum stopped. The sobbing continued while he sat on Daddy's lap, but he was focusing on a kids' show on the laptop. He dared not cry. The naughty-corner technique worked! In the past, we tried placing him in a corner of the dining room as his naughty corner but he just walks off. We couldn't disciplined him there. Hayley even asked us why Julian walked away from the corner, because she wouldn't!!

This is the difference between Hayley & Julian in terms of naughty-corner disciplining.

This evening, Hayley hit Julian's head with a stick and made him cry. He came to us crying, hand on the head & said "Jeh jeh hit me". Hayley knew she was in trouble with us. She walked up to him & kissed his head quickly. I do this thing of kissing the pain away whenever they hurt themselves. Daddy was adamant that Hayley needs to be punished for hitting. Normally, she would cry all the way to the naughty-corner and for the whole duration that she's there. This time, I reasoned with her & said, Hayley you understand that you did the wrong thing by hitting your brother so you have to go to the naughty corner (which is the corner of the dining room) and stand there for 4 minutes because you're 4 years old. If you reason with her, she will listen most of the time. So she walked herself to the naughty corner, stood there and waited for me to time her. After the third minute, she said "I need to go to do a wee". I replied, "okay, but you have one more minute in the corner". She walked to the toilet, did her wee & actually walked back to the corner again, to finish off the one minute of punishment! I was quietly surprised because I was ready to "write-off" the one minute after the wee!!

Julian in the meantime, remembers that his naughty corner is outside. When I reminded him, if he's naughty, he's going to go outside, he said "i throw you outside" repeating what I said last nite.

Birthday celebration at daycare

2011-04-23T00:09:00.003+10:00

Photo taken with Joanne, Hayley's class teacher. She is the kindest, most warm, loving teacher I've met.

These photos were taken by Joanne using my camera that I left with her for the day. I forgot to re-charge the battery (Silly Mommy!!!) so only managed to take these few pics. Joanne took some very nice shots of the cousins (Bailey & Toby) and Julian using her camera. She developed the photos & compiled them nicely into Hayley's school workbook.

Day out to Parra

2011-04-23T00:00:00.003+10:00

Hayley's birthday fell on a Thursday which is a day she & Julian attends daycare. So I took Tuesday off to take them out as an early celebration together with my parents.

Toby's 3rd

2011-04-22T23:41:00.003+10:00

Long time no blog, am going to do a catchup with what photos I have.

This was at Cousin Toby's 3rd birthday party. Kids all got wet after playing with this toy outside. It was towards the end of summer, and the day turned out to be a bit too cold for a swim, so the kids didn't end up going in the pool.

A Whole Night's Work For a Worthy Big Smile

2011-03-28T23:43:00.012+11:00

The Result of this...... IS THIS !!......

Mommy's comments (bcos Daddy's posting is almost wordless!):

Daddy spent 4 hours assembling Hayley's dollhouse till midnite and surprised her by placing the finished product in her bedroom. One of the wooden pieces snapped & cut his thumb.

Happy 4th Birthday Hayley!

2011-03-28T23:05:00.011+11:00

Hayley, Bro and Little Cuzzins

Princess Hayley with the Choo Choo Train cake baked by Mommy !

hmm.....it does look more like a truck ?!!

Fun in a closet

2011-03-09T00:19:00.000+11:00

Zoo Assembly

2011-03-09T00:11:00.001+11:00

My not-so-little girl

2011-03-06T00:40:00.007+11:00

This photo says a million words. It may look as though the siblings are fighting. They don't look happy with each other. Actually, what happened was I was walking in front of them, not holding on to neither of them. Hayley was being over-protective of Julian. She was concerned that he would dash off onto the road so she wanted to grab hold of his hand to walk hand-in-hand with him. She does that quite often and Julian lets her.

Sure the kids fight, like all kids do. You have that toy, I must have that same toy (even though it's been lying around for ages untouched). You have that bowl, I must have that same bowl (even though there are so many other bowls) etc.

Most other times though, Hayley is the second mother. Since little, she would look out for her brother. When Julian was a baby, if he crawled towards the stairs at home, she yells out to tell me. If he spilled or regurgitated or does anything out of the ordinary, she tells me.

She's nearly 4 years old. I don't know other 4-yr olds well enough to compare, but whenever I talk to her, I find her amazingly mature. One evening, when I tucked her in bed, I said to her that I will be getting a drink of water from downstairs & then I'll come back up. A few minutes later, she 'caught' me sitting at the computer and haven't been downstairs like I said I would. She said to me, "Mommy, go downstairs and get your water. Go straightaway!". Bossy isn't she?! At that moment, I felt like I'm the kid & she's the Mommy!

At 3 years 11 months, she weighs 18.4 kg. She's shot up in height (don't know measurement but she looks taller). All of a sudden, the pants are too short. T-shirts are too tight.

She has a funny habit. At home, she sleeps ON her favourite blanket. It's a cot blanket that was a gift when she was born. Even though she has a pillow, she still sleeps on the blanket.

I'm very proud of this little girl. Allow me to show off a little bit. A few people complimented on how well-behaved she is. At the playground, another mother who has a daughter & son of similar ages as Hayley & Julian said she notices that Hayley is very good at taking care of the brother. At church, a lady who sat behind us tapped me on the shoulder at the end of mass to tell me that I have a very well-behaved kid. At the cafe, an elderly couple actually congratulated me for having well-behaved kids! When I was looking for a table for us, I thought this couple must be dreading having little brats sit right next to them & spoiling their meal but that was the best spot so I sat both of them there while I ordered. They sat down side-by-side & watched me, patiently waiting for me to return. When our orders came, they ate, they drank & listened to me. No jumping, no screaming, no tantrums. When the couple was about to leave, she said, "Congratulations. You have very good kids".

Today there was an incident at the shopping centre playground. Hayley came running to me & pointed under the playset (where it wasn't visible to me from where I sat). She told me Julian is crying & there's a naughty boy there so I rushed to see what's going on. Julian was bawling his eyes out & looked scared. An older boy was near him & I think the boy was trying to get Julian to do something he didn't want to do. I was so proud of her that she knew to get an adult's help.

At childcare, her teacher told me this. It was to tell me how Hayley applied what she learnt the day before. Lesson is: Ask for help - situations where asking for help is necessary

Hayley: Joanne (teacher's name), I'm hot. I want to take off my cardigan

Joanne: It's still a little bit chilly. Why don't you keep it on until we get back inside the room

Hayley: But I've been running around & I feel hot

Joanne: How about you keep it on, but roll up the sleeves?

Hayley: Okay, but it's a little bit tricky. Can you help me roll up the sleeves?

Joanne: Sure

Hayley: Joanne, I didn't cry. I didn't know how to do it myself so I asked for help

This was taken at the kids' indoor play centre called Lollypops Playland. It's the second time they've been there. There's a huge 6 metre high 3 level adventure playframe. Julian started climbing up, and eventually he got so high up he was on his own to figure out how to get back down. When Hubs saw this he got worried about how Julian was going to get down. I was cool as a cucumber (as usual) hahhaa!! I was only worried about his one sock that came off. It's Cousin Bailey's hand-me-down sock! He was trying to put it back on while standing up & of course he couldn't. I was afraid he was gonna leave the sock up there. I wasn't worried about him getting stuck up there because I planned to send my ever reliable girl to the rescue. So off she went like any responsible big sister would. She directed him down eventually. And what happened to the sock? Julian held on to it the whole time while climbing his way down, following his sister.

Jigsaw puzzles

2011-02-19T23:20:00.003+11:00

Last time I blogged about Hayley's accomplishment in completing a 16-piece puzzle at childcare. A few days later, she brought out a puzzle that I had forgotten all about. It's a 25-pce Bob the Builder puzzle that we got from last year's Easter Show in Apr-10.

Hayley was three years old then. Wasn't showing any interest nor patience in completing the puzzle so I packed it away thinking it's too advanced for her age.

Now, Hayley at 3 years 11 months completed the same puzzle on her own. She sat down & patiently worked it out. I found she did better when left alone without me checking on her every move. Cos Mommy is always correcting her when she makes a mistake! Reminder to self: Play down things as being a mistake and more a great try.

Julian in the meantime continued playing with his animal farm 12-pce wooden puzzle for the zillionth time. He associates the Bob the Builder puzzle as being Hayley's & dare not play with it when Hayley was around. He's funny like that. He's either scared of jeh-jeh or respects her belongings. When Hayley was done playing, I asked Julian to give it a try. The first few attempts I guided him. Over the next few days, they both played with it. Sometimes on their own, sometimes guided.

Parents aren't meant to compare, every child is unique in their development milestones. I can't help but compare when Julian completed the same puzzle on his own too after a few days' practice and he's only 2 yrs 5 mths.

He loves to shout "I DID IT" when he accomplishes something and if it gets us smiling, he'll do it even more. Like taking his own shoes & socks off. So when he completed the puzzle, he was so proud of himself. He is definitely not a fire truck fanatic or a racing car enthusiast.

Ginger boy's chitter chatter

2011-02-14T20:42:00.005+11:00

Julian at 2 yrs 4 mths still baby talks a lot (single words, pronunciation only his family can understand) but recently started forming sentences rather than uttering single words only. He repeats phrases that sounds a lot like he copies Hayley.

- I dont want anything
- I did it!
- what happened?
- one for you, one for me (and start handing out whatever he has in turns)
- where Daddy gone to?
- tis one not yours, tis one Boy's one
- I like giraffe/chocolate/orange (he doesn't really like choc, or orange, he just says it)

He can sing a few nursery rhymes, the ones I remember are:
- Santa Claus is coming to town (just this line)
- Incy Wincy Spider
- Row, row, row your boat
- O MacDonald
- Twinkle
- Jingle Bells (except it sounds more like ginger boy, so I call him ginger boy sometimes). And Hayley wants to be called ginger girl

He recognises numbers, alphabets well & can name colours like blue, red, white, purple, yellow, pink, orange. Whenever we pass a church & he sees the crucifix, he calls out Jesus & sometimes says Amen with the hands clasped.

Today I held up a Chinese NY red packet that had his name printed in black texta at the top. I didn't expect him to know, but I asked him what's the word written on it. He looked at it, then looked at me, looking for hints or the answer. Hayley shouted out, "ang pow!". Being the copy-cat that he is, he shouted back "ang pow!". I thought of saying Hayley, dont confuse him, u're teaching him the wrong stuff. I said, no that's not the right answer. He looked at the red packet again, gave it a thought, and said, "Julian!". WAHAHAHAHHAA.... i was so surprised. He knows J is for Julian and he recognises his name!

Kids at school

2011-02-12T21:57:00.002+11:00

This week, I've been working from home, which means I'm not as rushed to drop the kids off & head off to the office. So I had the chance to hang around to talk to the teachers & observe the kids.

Teacher's comments on Hayley:
- She completed a 16-piece picture puzzle all on her own. She told her teacher, "My Mommy told me to start with the corners first". I was beaming inside when I heard this. First, I didn't know she is able to do it because we don't have 16-pc puzzle at home. Secondly, she applied what I taught her. So proud of her!
- She knows her pronouns well & is able to use he, she, him, her correctly when given a picture & asked to form a sentence
- Preposition grammar ie "of", "to", "in", "for", "with" and "on" - still needs some improvement, she got some wrong
- Colours, shapes, scored 100% right. She knew them from 2 yrs plus.

Teacher's comments on Julian:
- He still doesn't ask to go to the toilet, but when taken as a group he will comply & do his business. Otherwise, he'll wet his pants. Nearly everyday he's been coming home with a pair of wet pants. So disappointing
- I told his teacher he loves animals, as he was busy doing the animal puzzles. Then I tested him on the animals & he could name all of them. He had the Safari animal puzzle so that was easy. It had elephant, lion, tiger, hippo. The teacher was amazed that he can say "Baby Jaguar" (learnt from Diego) except the animal was a leopard

After I said goodbye & gave them their hugs & kisses, I left their room but was observing them from the room next door without them knowing. This is what I saw...

-Story time: all the kids sat on the floor rug to listen to the teacher read a book. What's Julian boy doing? He sat on his own at the table away from the rest, doing his 16-pc animal puzzle. He was multi-tasking, looking at the teacher now & again then returning his attention to the puzzle. Hayley sat with the rest but her attention wasn't on the story. She's busy looking around, checking out who's crying, turn here, turn there, but not participating in the storytime when the teacher asked questions
- Group time: that's when the kids do a song & dance. Julian finally got up and join the rest leaving his puzzle unfinished. The kids were asked to form a circle & join hands. Hayley held her brother's hand on the left, and Cousin Toby's hand on the right. But she was holding Toby by the arm and I didn't know why until today. She told me it's because Toby's hand was cold and she didn't like to hold cold hands

Hayley being in the 4-5 yr old class means they have individualised structured programs to prepare them for Kindergarten next year. I was given a form to fill in and not proud to say that I haven't done my homework on time. It was given to me two weeks ago. Tonight, I did it but struggled.

Question one: Your child really enjoys....

I couldn't think of anything appropriate to write. I can't write she really enjoys watching TV. Which kid doesn't and how does that help the teachers to help her? Then I thought... hmmm... she really enjoys to talk. But again that's no good. I had to go to Hubs for his two cents worth. He immediately came up with... she really enjoys artwork. OH YES!! What a bad mother.

Julian @ 2 year 4 months

2011-02-09T22:51:00.004+11:00

Still sleeping in the cot at home. Not at MIL's or childcare though. We're not ready to convert his cot into a toddler bed because with the cot we can control better when he refuses to sleep. He knows he's confined and he's smart enough to know he shouldn't attempt to climb out and fall like Humpty Dumpty.
He sleeps in his own room from birth, both kids did. We play the same lullaby CD since birth at night time.
Still on the bottle for milk. We're not ready to wean him because he doesn't eat much. Knowing his stubborn character, he would refuse to drink milk if he no longer gets the comfort sucks. Milk is his main source of fatness! He drinks 3-4 bottles a day. You can see he's already quite skinny now.
Still at the stage of throwing tantrums & refusing to cooperate by bursting into tears and at times lie on the floor if he doesn't get what he wants. Hard to negoatiate with this boy. Eg if you do xxx I'll give you a lolly.
Starting childcare for Julian was effortless. No preparation for the big day, not like we have to convince him over & over again that it's a fun place to be. He hasn't cried at all at drop offs. Having big sister there makes a huge difference I'm sure.
He's an animal lover. Not so sure about the real animals cos we dont have pets. He loves books, toys, TV shows with animals. He sleeps with Turtle & Eeyore. If one of them is missing, he'll complain. He completes his 12-piece animal puzzle over & over again. We have other puzzles, but he prefers the animals ones. He can name a lot of animals from the Safari, ocean world & farm animals.
He's just not into cars & vroom vroom toys! He received presents such as mini-size cars, Tonka Truck, Match Box car. Not the least interested.
When we're out & about, he stays close to us. No need to worry about him running away because he complains when he's not holding us. And it's HIM holding us, usually our pinky. Which is why when he trips over, we have no grip on him & he just falls.
He likes to scribble and when something looks vaguely like a letter or number, he yells out the letter or number, very proud of his achievement, wants us to go & check it out & praise him.

Happy Rabbit Year

2011-02-09T21:48:00.007+11:00

Growing up in Malaysia, Chinese New Year meant new clothes, new shoes, new everything. Out with the old, in with the new . My parents make a special effort to buy us brand new clothes or my Mom make dresses for me. My late maternal grandma pays special attention to the colour we wear. She disapproves us wearing black or dark colours on NY's day. Bright Red would be her preference. We would visit family & friends over the NY period.

As kids, we are the recipient of red packets. So CNY meant money money money.

Fast forward two decades and be in a western country... I am now a parent of 2 kids. I dont follow most of the traditions associated with CNY. My kids are seen wearing old clothes, old shoes at the CNY's Eve reunion dinner. Photo above is Hayley wearing everything old, with a touch of Chinese costume, a CNY red vest that she wore before. I didn't buy myself anything new either. we get new stuff all throughout the year, we don't only get them for special occasions.

The exchange of red packets honestly seems pointless to me. I give your kids packets, you give my kids packets.

One thing that I still follow is the tradition of no sweeping and cleaning. I told Hayley to please help me keep the house clean because CNY Day Mommy cannot vacuum. In case you don't already know, I handvac everyday, cleaning up after the kids & for spot cleaning.

So of course that leads Hayley to ask WHY. Puzzled... Mommy cannot vacuum?

I explained it's because cleaning means we'll sweep all of our good luck away.

Second day of CNY, I was using the handvac. Hayley asked me why I'm vacuuming. You're not supposed to vacuum the good luck away. Kids are cute, they repeat exactly what they hear you say.

Happy Year of the Rabbit all! Next year is year of the Dragon. That's my year!! I'm not excited cos it means I'm 12 x 3 years old :(

I wish I can bottle up cuteness

2011-02-08T09:23:00.002+11:00

2 years 4 months... So cute, I wish I can bottle him up & keep him this way.

Yes I'm biased. No matter how naughty he gets, he is still a bundle of cuteness.

Best friends

2011-02-08T00:09:00.003+11:00

Best friends in Hands-in-the-pocket pose

Best friends on swing at parents-in-law's backyard. So convenient no need to walk to the park

Best friends holding hands

Best friends watching lion getting ready for lion dance on Australia Day

Best friends chilling out on the couch

Circus act

2011-02-08T00:02:00.004+11:00

I positioned the two best friends that way and used the macro setting on my Canon IXUS. It allows me to focus closed up. Julian can now say "good friends" cos I keep repeating giraffe & zebra are good friends, although I'm not sure if he understands the meaning.

Day #1: Childcare 2011

2011-01-19T23:37:00.004+11:00

I had these photos uploaded but never got to blogging anything on it. Forget Day#1, they're going into the fourth week of childcare already!

I had a zillion things to do and a zillion things happened since then. There was Australia Day fireworks display. Cousin Lillian's 1st birthday party. My mom's 68th birthday party. Chinese New Year party.

Hay you!

2011-01-19T00:19:00.002+11:00

Hayley was playing with the water gun inside the house & shooting water on the floor.

My dad, surprised to see what she was doing, yelled out, "Hey, don't do that! You're wetting the floor."

Hayley's immediate response, "I'm not Hey! My name is Hay-ley".

My parents laughed their heads off.

Boys don't wipe?

2011-01-19T00:04:00.003+11:00

This afternoon, my mom saw me help my boy do his wee in the toilet-bowl. This is what she saw...

I put the toilet-seat down & lifted him up to STAND on the toilet seat, the adult-sized toilet seat. Not stand on a stool, or on a stepper, but actually stand high up and wee all the way down.

He did his wee and it started to drip the last few drops so I grabbed a square of toilet-paper to dab.

Mom's feedback:
1) Don't stand him on the toilet-seat. How's he going to do it when he's at childcare & he has to do it on his own?
2) Boys don't wipe. Just shake it off. You don't want him to grow up & be seen in public toilets wiping himself after a wee.

Funny hearing this feedback cos I never thought about it before. Silly Mommy. As in Silly ME, not my Mom. My Mom is right, she's always right.

I still don't like the thought of having the last few drops drip everywhere. That's why toilet rims & toilet floors have yucky yellowish stains !!

Zebra & Giraffe are Good Friends

2011-01-17T21:18:00.002+11:00

Julian's two favourites - zebra & giraffe

At Taronga Zoo, zebra & giraffe live together

Photo courtesy of http://wickedreport.com

Miss 3.75 choosing her PJs

2011-01-15T17:49:00.011+11:00

I walked into Peter Alexander store today (it's a shop that sells sleepware), with the objective of using my $50 giftcard that I've been carrying around for months. Went to the Junior's rack and saw this cute little PJs. First thing I did was checked out the price tag, it was RRP $45 with 50% sale... which I thought was still high-priced for kids' PJs. Hayley was with me, so just for fun, I brought Hayley into the fitting room to try it on. We both intended to only try it on for fun. At times, when I take Hayley shopping and she wants something but knows that I'm not buying it, she's contented with just holding it while we're in the store & putting it back when we leave. Not this time.

After she put it on, she looked at herself in the mirror and she loved it and begged me to buy it. She didn't have to beg too much cos I looked at her and I thought she looked soooo cute in it! And Julian will love seeing the giraffe.

Since it's a Size 6 and of stretchy material, she should be able to wear it over 2 summer seasons. That's worth buying! Too bad can't hand it down to Julian.

The other day Hayley chose her sunnies. She tried on 2 pairs & can tell me which pair was more comfortable. The other pair was too tight around the ears & not comfortable. Love it when they can communicate !

Art of Toilet Training

2011-01-12T22:43:00.007+11:00

Julian is now able to tell us when he needs to wee. Instead of the laundry tub, he can do it standing up to wee into a toilet bowl. Daddy demonstrated a few times :) Obviously not my expertise. We stumbled our way through the process & really fluked it! Here is the summary of how we mastered toilet training Master Julian:

1. Wait for Summer. We were aiming to get him trained before he starts childcare so during our time off work in Dec, it was perfect time to stay at home & concentrate on just that. Summer he can get nuded up and washing dries off faster. We started with 2 pairs of Bright Bots Training Pants which were weed upon about 4 times a day during the first few days of training

2. Look for visual cues. Julian holds his weeny and does a dance

3. Buy undies! SIL bought us a pack of boys' undies for us the first day we were training him. They've come in really handy, undies hold poo whereas baggy loose shorts dont. We've had a couple of poo in undies accident. I'm okay with cleaning it, only cos it's my own child's poo! However, he poos in the nappy most of the time. He hasn't pooed in the toilet yet

4. Be prepared for accidents. This time round (compared to training Hayley), I found myself more relaxed & didn't make a big deal about it. Luckily, accidents were only on wipeable surfaces so I clean it up and hope the next accident will be wipeable again

5. Make it fun! We show excitement when he wees in the toilet! He really loves to be praised. PRAISE! PRAISE! PRAISE! Never under-estimate the power of positive reinforcement

SO that's how WE DID IT! We didn't need any fancy potty that comes with bells & whistles. He never liked sitting on it. No need for toddler toilet seats, the 6 that we got for Hayley is only for her. Dont remember the six? Read here

Christmas Loot!

2011-01-08T22:31:00.006+11:00

After every Christmas and birthday, I have all the intentions to take photos of the kids with their gifts from family & friends and send you guys a personal thank you. Be patient, and keep waiting for that day... but don't hold your breath.

There are still some gifts that are unopened, they're unwrapped, but I haven't untied the cable ties bcos they are so friggin hard to undo. Why do toy manufacturers have to make such tight cables to secure a kid's toy?! Is it simply to prevent theft?

Here are some photos that I captured... THANK YOU to all the aunties & uncles !! If you don't see a picture of your present, it's not that they didn't like it. It's not easy capturing the precious moment. One of the toys that I find hard to capture is Follow Me Thomas. Follow Me Thomas is a Thomas train that comes with a lamp. When you shine the lamp, Thomas will follow it. But it goes at 60 km/hr. I was playing with it & it took me a while to figure out how I can control Thomas to do zigzags & loops without crashing into furniture. Julian runs off as if there's a mouse in the house (pun intended, he's born in the Year of the Rat!).

Can't believe my little girl is as tall as Frosty already! She used to be scared of Frosty

Julian with his drill & hammer set. Think he's gonna be a leftie, he uses it a lot more than the right

Very educational toy & requires serious concentration

Both of them on a laptop each. Our kids don't have iPads, they only have toy laptops

Letters puzzle

Hayley beading a necklace - The butterfly top fits Hayley perfectly. I wouldn't mind having a top like that in my size. It has a mock halter-neck tie-back.

What can I say, this boy just lurrrrrves his animals. This is a farm animal set, comes with fencing. He likes to match the animals to the ones he sees in books

Hayley the "Terrific Typist", one of the activities on the laptop that requires them to type the letter they see on screen

Hayley the guitarist. When she was younger, around 2 yrs old, we bought her a Wiggles guitar but it was faulty. It didn't dance as it should so we refunded the guitar and she never got a replacement... until now

We did it - Toilet-training

2011-01-06T22:09:00.004+11:00

Any Dora the Explorer fans out there or has kids who are fans will know the phrase 'We did it'. At the end of every episode, the characters will sing 'We did it' and do a dance. Both Hayley & Julian enjoy watching Dora, and her cousin Diego. They would dance to the song.

We started toilet training (TT) Julian a week ago and up to yesterday evening, we just couldn't get him to co-operate. He refuses to sit on the potty or the toilet. We stand him in the laundry tub, splash water, let him run in the garden without pants. No amount of bribery works. Hayley even volunteered to demonstrate to him how it's done by weeing in the potty. Nothing worked.

Yesterday he was at MIL's for the first time since we started TT bcos we've gone back to work after the hols. He wee'ed everywhere except in the toilet/potty. After hearing the pain he's caused her, I thought it would be best to get him back on the nappies until he's more ready.

On that same evening, Hubs used some strong insistance to get him in the laundry tub when he saw that he was busting. Hubs carried him to the tub even though he was crying, J insisted he had "no shh shh". He held on to his weeny & did a "i'm busting" dance - those are the signs we look for now. While he was trying to fight his way out of the tub, his wee came and from that one successful wee, he had lots of praises, hugs & kisses from Daddy, Mommy & Jeh Jeh. We clapped, we sang Dora's "We did it", we gave him lollies. From then onwards, it was like "WOW, I love that everyone's happy with what I've done. I'll keep doing it then". We haven't had any accidents in 24 hours. Yipee!!!!! I'm sure there'll be accidents to come but it's a good start.

2 years & 3 months... he's still learning about what he has to do when his pants are off. He stares down there to see what will happen. I think lots of praises did the trick. Lots of scolding & slaps on the bum too, but those didn't teach him a thing.

He waits until he has a nappy for bedtime before he does a poo.

Hubs wants to claim all the credit bcos Mommy was ready to give up. Same story when we TT Hayley. I was gonna give up and then she started weeing in the potty!

Hayley @ 3 y 9 m ; Julian @ 2 y 3 m

2010-12-31T07:06:00.009+11:00

Hayley has always been very sensible. What I mean by that is from what she says & does, there are many but here are some that I recall:

- when I stopped the stroller (with Julian inside) to buy something, Hayley reminds me to put on the stroller brakes

- when we walk in public, she always stay close to me and doesnt wander off bcos she doesn't want to go missing or have the bad people catch her

- my mum placed her glasses on the armrest of the couch & Hayley knows that it can be knocked off so she told grandma that's dangerous, you should put them high up. And she comes up with a solution, put them on the piano
- if I asked her to look after her brother, she will hold his hand or put her arm around his shoulder to make sure he doesn't wander off. At Darling Harbour on my bday, when I asked her to watch her brother, she asked me I look after Ah Boy, who's going to look after me?

- my parents enjoy her company so much, they asked if they can keep her in Newcastle. Mum said "I enjoy having conversations with her, better than talking to your father"

- my dad likes to spoil the kids with offers of lollies. Hayley said to him, Chia Gong, don't keep giving me lollies. They're junk food, it's not good for me. Later my teeth will rot.

Julian is one very cheeky boy. My mum said "even when he cries he is soooo adorable". He chucks tantrums & whines when he doesn't get what he wants. When he's grumpy, nothing can please him. But he's also a cutie, and he listens to you as long as you don't use force.

We're trying to toilet train him but he's resisting all attempts to get him to sit on the potty or toilet. The more we force him, the more stubborn he gets. We can't even bribe him with lollies. He would rather sit on wet pants. Ask him to sit on the potty he says not yet. Lift him to the potty, he screams stop it, stop it. I think he learnt these phrases from Hayley. He listens to his sister. He lets her boss him around! Most of the time anyway.

He can sing the first few lines of nursery rhymes like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Little Star

He's starting childcare in January, same centre & days as Hayley but he'll be in the younger class.

It's the nicest thing in the world watching the kids play with each other, they keep each other company. And the sweetest sound in the world is hearing them giggle uncontrollaby, instigated by one of them.

This photo was taken in Newcastle. I took the kids to the playground area & watched them from a distance. They both ran in, climbed up the stairs, crawled through the tunnels & slide down. If it was just one of them, I imagine they wd want me to walk them in, hold their hand, encourage them to slide down.

Celebration of my birthday 2010

2010-12-30T22:52:00.010+11:00

I'm missing a blog entry of Christmas Day. That can wait, I want to blog abt my birthday instead :)

Every year for my birthday (in my adult yrs), I've always treated it as any other day, nothing special. This year, I decided that I want to celebrate it. I'M TURNING 34 and I feel OLD so better cherish & celebrate the 30s before the 40s come rolling along. What I would've liked to do was get pissed so badly I wake up with the biggest headache and having no memory of what I did the previous night.

What I actually did was...

The kids had a playdate with Cousin Bailey. It's the holidays so no childcare, no babysitter (my MIL). We (the parents) have to mind the kids. Hubs went out for a short while to buy me a cake so I was left home alone with three monkeys. It's hardwork, I really admire my MIL. I tell Hayley constantly Ma is a superwoman.

In the evening, we went to Darling Harbour for dinner. Hayley had a kiddies' meal of crumbed calamari with chips & salad. It comes with softdrink & icecream. Julian picked bits & pieces from our plates.

This is our order - hot & cold seafood platter for 2. Actually, it was Hubs' order. I walked away to take Hayley to the toilet, came back & he told me what he ordered. I thought to myself, what? I didn't even get the chance to look at the menu. Then I consoled myself... Fine, better than having a husband who can't make decisions & making the kids wait for their meals. He said he did consult with me when he looked at the menu from home. I was hoping to choose something else. I just never got round to saying it! For his bday, I'll be ordering what I want!

Hayley's dessert - I'm so proud of her, she didn't finish her icecream, and neither did she finish the one glass of softdrink shared with Julian. He wasn't interested in the icecream at all. All junk food!

By the end of the night, I had one glass of white wine only. Hardly enough to get me drunk. Try again next year.

Christmas Eve 2010

2010-12-29T15:44:00.004+11:00

Photos taken on Xmas Eve at my parents' place

Julian on my 7 mth old nephew's walker. We never had one at home so that explains why my 2 yr old is attracted to a baby toy.

I can't remember why Hayley's got her jacket on. Weather's been weird this summer. Some days are cold & wet, the next it's your typical Aust hot & dry summer day.

Last Xmas Eve was more eventful - it was spent at the hospital because of Hayley's asthma. Not complaining abt this yr's uneventful Eve!

Our Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T22:57:00.002+11:00

This year, like the last three years, we spent Christmas in Newcastle at my parents' place. It's a two-hour drive mostly on the freeway so we travel during the kids' sleeping hours. Hayley was so excited about going to grandparents' place, she kept asking me in the car, is it midnight yet? Earlier I told her to sleep in the car, and by the time we arrive it'll be midnight. Hence the question, is it midnight yet.

Photos to come later, but I wanted to blog about Master Julian. For three days & four nights that we were in Newcastle, he refused to drink milk. Not one drop. The first night that we were there, he refused to sleep until 1:30am. He would skip his afternoon nap too. The bedtime routine we had at home was out the window. He would wake up in the middle of the night and cries for milk but when we made it he doesn't want it. We thought maybe it's time he's weaned off the milk bottle. After four nights, back home, we followed the same bedtime routine that we had before. TV off, lights off, and bring out the beanbag where he drinks his milk from. It has to be the brown one (we have red, green & brown). He insisted the beanbag is placed in a specific position where he can see the Xmas fairy lights. We were expecting him to refuse the bottle but instead he happily lied down & sucked it. It was as though the Newcastle trip never happened.

Routines are good for kids & good for parents, but we didn't expect Julian to follow it so strictly. He won't take milk just because he didn't have the same beanbag, wasn't in the same house, didn't have the same people around. We didn't have that problem when we went to Gold Coast although that was three months ago when he was more of a baby.

The next blog posting, I'll share some photos. Hope you all had a great time shared with family & friends.

what's the couch good for?

2010-12-05T22:44:00.002+11:00

The BACK of the couch is perfect for playing & watching TV. The kids often climb behind it to sit on the window sill or walk along the sill, from one window to the other. While they're having fun, they're cleaning for Mommy. The sill is dust-free, their feet isn't.

Here Julian puts his animals on the Wiggles Big Red Car. The 25 dollar rip-off car from last year's Wiggles' concert has finally got some purpose.

The best Xmas gift

2010-11-28T00:51:00.005+11:00

Last week, I donated blood for the first time. My company regularly sends out emails calling for donors when the Red Cross blood bank mobile van comes round. They park on our driveway, so they're also physically hard to dismiss. But I've always deleted the emails. Not even a second spent on considering whether I should do it or not. The times when I was either pregnant or breastfeeding I had an excuse. This time, when the email arrived in my inbox, I thought WHY NOT and read the email. I should do it. Christmas is near. It's a time of giving.

On the day of the donation, they did a quick finger prick to test haemoglobin level. This prick left me more pain than the other needle that went in to draw out blood. Almost half a litre of blood was taken, about 470ml. When I was on the armchair waiting, I saw the guy next to me who had a big needle stabbed into this arm. I became nervous and had thoughts in my mind to escape. I was scared but I went ahead with it.

I asked how many people can one bag of blood save. Up to 3 people. I thought to myself, I hope my blood go to three good people worthy of my blood!

Would I do it again ? Definitely.... You should do it too!

Become a donor

Our little swimming pool in the backyard

2010-11-27T16:34:00.001+11:00

New passion in life

2010-11-26T23:28:00.004+11:00

I went through a period few months back when I felt my life is stuck in a rut. I was sad, if not depressed with the state of my life. Everyday was the same routine. I was questioning what is the point of living. Surely there must be more to the meaning of life than what I was stuck with. I wasn't doing anything that was particularly meaningful. I felt awful that I don't even make an effort to keep in touch with friends and even family. I don't exercise or take care of myself.

When I was younger, the various stages of my life would've given me something to aspire towards. When I was at school, it was to do well in exams. Next was to get to uni. Next was to get a good job. Next was to get married. Next was to have a baby... and then another baby. And then... ?

I don't know where to go from here and I'm (only) in my 30s. Assuming I still have many more years to go, I can't believe this is it, same thing day in day out.

Anyway, now the sad feeling is gone, but I still want to do different things and do things differently. Out of no where, I felt drawn to trying out recipes that I'd come across in magazines. Cooking was always seen as a mundane task, I'd rather starve than have to cook.

For the first time in my life, I baked a cake on my own!! And then I baked another, and another. It was also a massive ego boost when I hear positive feedback. I've so far baked sultana cake, banana cake, blueberry cake, coffee cake. Made Tiramisu and Rum Balls. I actually enjoy doing it too unlike in the past when I used to think why bother baking when you can buy them from the shops.

It's a small change in my life. I'm doing something that I enjoy and able to share it with others - that's what's important! Small steps, still plenty to work on towards improving my life.

Here are my coffee cake & rum balls I made today

For the love of shoes

2010-11-17T22:11:00.009+11:00

While we're on the topic of shoes... meet my latest investment.

There's a story to this... Once upon atime, I was browsing online after the kids were asleep. Stumbled upon this shoe sale on a brand I've never heard of Monette. I did some googling to check them out. Compared prices between websites. (Read: It was not an impulsive purchase). They're leather, 100% hand-made. It was 50% off RRP!! I fell in love with them. I JUST HAVE TO HAVE THEM! I only "invest" in leather shoes. I believe you get more cost per wear value out of them than man-made material.

These heels were A$87 a pair. Add delivery, it came to a total of $270 for 3 pairs. I proceeded to check-out & made payment by credit card. I selected Amex and then while it was processing, my eyes glanced onto this line on the webpage, 3.5% surcharge for Amex. SHIT! Nearly $10 for fees, on top of delivery fees. I was shitting myself, there was no turning back. I had already clicked on Confirm. What to do, what to do? Should I email them & beg them to waive that fee? I can't call them because it was the weekend.

How did I fix this? The next day, I put in another order for the same three pairs of heels, and paid through VISA which doesn't attract surcharge. And then hoped that they will issue refund on cancelling the first order. Today, I checked the Amex online and the refund came through. PHEW !!!

When will my beloved heels arrive? Not until late Dec. More than a month away. By then it's Xmas shutdown for my workplace so I won't actually wear them till 2011. These heels are for work. SIL asked if this company uses DHL as the courier, Dua Hari Lambat. It's a joke that Malaysians crack on DHL. Translation: Two Days Late. They use their own courier, SBL, Satu Bulan Lambat. Translation: One Month Late. Not funny? I'm surprised I still remember my Malay.

Colette is perfect for women on the go. This modern design with a hidden platform will carry you from one event to the next with ease and comfort!

A classic addition to any shoe collection. The Felicia's adorable bow detail, cut-outs and hidden platform make it a classic black heel with a twist

The versatile design of the Liliana means you can wear this style for seasons to come! The buckle detail and cream colour make this style an instant classic.

My favourite is the creamy pair. I bought one of a similar design, from Kmart, it was a write-off. Seriously not comfortable at all. It's collecting dust in the garage. I'm gonna throw Kmart out when Liliana arrives. Collette & Felicia are more practical, goes with anything.

Since Hubs' work shoes got stolen, I encouraged him to invest in a good pair (or two). Go splurge on a good quality leather. He would buy a good pair with or without my encouragement, but I had to say it to kinda reduce the guilt that I feel. Te-hee...

what kinda people steal OLD shoes?

2010-11-16T23:17:00.005+11:00

this is not exactly a blog entry about the kids...

Monday morning, getting ready to leave for work, Hubs was looking for his work shoes. Couldn't find them and thought I've put them away for him (err... nope!). He tried to recall when was the last time he wore them. Not Friday cos it's casual day. Maybe last Thursday. Sometimes we forget to bring our shoes in so left them on the porch overnight. Nothing has happened to them in the past.

Well not this time! The only explanation we could think of is, he left them out in the porch overnight & someone stole them. They're leather, some good brand, but they're hardly new. What kinda sick people steal other people's old worn shoes? Are they desperate to earn some extra cash from ebaying it or selling them in the flea market? I just cannot understand what kinda people do that?

I constantly remind Hayley that there are bad people in this world. For eg. if we're going somewhere, don't yell out where we're going in case bad people are around listening to us. This time, I told her bad people stole Daddy's shoes.

WHY there are bad people?

I don't know. Some people are just bad.

WHY bad people stole Daddy's shoes?

Because they have no shoes? They're bad people. The police will catch them and put them in jail (I actually said to myself, I wish they will die)

I'm now checking spy gadgets for things like a camera for the porch. I'd like to see the bad people who steal old shoes. The bad dog owners who let their dogs poo on others' lawn. The bad people who steal potted plants from others' front garden. These have all happend to us over the six years that we've lived here.

Any good ideas for an inexpensive spy camera for the porch? Don't wanna spend too much in case that gets stolen !!!

His Obsessions

2010-11-09T23:43:00.004+11:00

I walked past the fridge & noticed this.

I asked Hubs, hey who did this?

Did what? Oh, that? I don't know, must be Ah Boy, can't be Hayley.

That's exactly right. Only Julian has the obsession with sorting & arranging things. He would delay having his milk just to complete the job, then return, check out his masterpiece & clap his hands.

Other obsessions:

- things must be done in a certain sequence/routine like cannot wear socks without shoes. If we take off his shoes, the socks must come off or else the crocodile tears will come. Similarly, we can't just put on his socks without shoes, he will pull them off or insist you put on his shoes

- must be holding Turtle & Eeyore when he's put in cot (at home only)

- when you're watching his shows with him on TV, you're not allowed to sing along. I must be spoiling his show with my voice.

At 2 yrs 1 month, he knows most of the letters of the alphabet. Knows the numbers 1-10. Not good with shapes, colours & certainly not reading yet. We have some home-made flash cards that has words on one side and the associated picture on the reverse side. It's to get them to recognise the word, not just look at the picture. But instead of reading, they flip to the picture side & then say the word.

Our wedding song

2010-11-09T22:53:00.002+11:00

"Every Day I love You" by Boyzone

Turn up the volume, play the song! Tell me you love the song too. Great voices, great music.

6th Anniversary

2010-11-07T22:19:00.007+11:00

30th Oct was our 6th wedding anniversary. We started the day by making a pilgrimage with the kids to Mary MacKillop Place @ North Sydney. The main reason for going is to seek spiritual help for Hayley's constipation problem. We keep track of her poo pattern on the calendar & noticed that in the past month, we gave her enema for a whole month. How can we keep doing that?!! We've tried various medical assistance & are really exhausted with the ongoing daily challenge. One day we gave her suppository, she screamed the house down like we were torturing her. We threw her outdoor to the back of the house (in the dark, barefooted) to get her to stop screaming. Crazy parents you think? Believe me, this problem can drive YOU crazy too if you were in our shoes. Although I don't wish this upon anyone.

Thank God it's not like this everyday, but the worse we've had. We look UP for help instead of merely relying on doctors & medicines. It's still a struggle to get Hayley to poo especially when she doesn't want to sit on the toilet. I don't feel the poo coming she says. When she sits, there's no business. Despite this, believing that God is here to help us is a comfort.

I took photos of the kids to reflect on this 6th wedding anniversary. Married 6 yrs ago, now we have these two gorgeous munchkins. They're both healthy (other than the damn poo problem).

People say having kids kill the romance in a marriage. What IS romance? I dont remember what that is anymore! This year's anniversary, we made an effort to go out on date night. I had to convince Hubs that just because we have kids it doesn't mean we stop doing things just the two of us. My parents babysat while we went out to the city for a harbour cruise. Don't want to post photo of us, but here's the food (one of four or five plates Hubs had. I wasnt counting). It was a buffet & there was unlimited alchohol onboard. I lost count of the number of glasses I had.

It was a long overdue date night. However, reality is one date night doesn't re-ignite the romance that we lost. With kids, work and everything else, we have neglected our marriage. Sad huh?

Hide & Seek

2010-10-17T21:39:00.004+11:00

When Hayley was at Julian's age ie 2 yo, she hated playing hide & seek with me. Everytime I went hiding, she'd get annoyed & cry because she didn't like Mommy disappearing on her. She tells me she doesn't want to play even before I start the game.

Today the three of us played hide & seek at home - Me and the kids. We would take turns in all combinations - the kids hide, Mommy seek; Mommy hide, kids seek; Hayley hide, Julian & Mommy seek. Hayley at this age loves the game. She calls the seeker the monster and laughs & screams hysterically when found. Julian follows Hayley with the screaming and trotters along. He understands how the game is played. When it's his turn to seek, he walks around the house & searches patiently. When it's his turn to hide, he stands still & be as quiet as a mouse.

Speaking of a mouse, Julian's Chinese zodiac sign is the Rat. He knows his animals in the English language, except for the mouse/rat. Everytime he sees a picture of it, he says it in Hakka!

Where was Daddy when we were playing hide & seek? One time he was upstairs on the computer. Another time, he was downstairs on the computer. He says Hide & Seek is a dangerous game. So typical of him to see danger in everything. He says the kids might hide in dangerous spots. We're playing indoors, inside our own house, downstairs only... *roll my eyes & ignore him*

The Domestic Goddess

2010-10-13T23:09:00.002+11:00

This is about as talented as I can get when it comes to cooking, if you can class making jelly as being cooking.

I stirred, I poured, I mixed in the colours very carefully and VOILA! So proud of my achievement, I had to take a photo of it & blog it.

I borrowed the jelly mould from MIL. When looking for food-dye in our kitchen, I was surprised that I had a green & red bottle, perfect for my creation.

I also baked ginger bread cookies a few weeks ago but no photos to show off.

OUCH!

2010-10-05T00:07:00.004+11:00

This little cheeky monkey is up to mischief. Bit Daddy on the shoulder and arms..Terrible Twos !

Julian turns 2!

2010-10-02T13:37:00.010+10:00

So much has been happening lately, with the recent Gold Coast trip, and then day out with Thomas the Tank (which I haven't had time to blog yet, but some of you would've seen the pics on FB), and Julian turning TWO! It's no coincidence that we had more family activities recently. Just one reason - most things are free for children under two. So we maxed it.

Julian's birthday was on Thursday and we're having party with family on the weekend. Hubs & I took the day off to take the kids out. I made it my rule that I would always take a day off on my kids' birthdays. By the end of the day, in the evening, we still haven't had a cake for him. He didnt ask for it, but Hayley did. As a last minute plan, Hubs popped by the local Korean bakery and got this very yummy $19 blueberry cake and popped by in-laws place.

Milestones at 2 yo:

- Recognises the letter 'J'. Ask him what letter is it. He'll say "jay!". Ask him, J is for? He'll say "Julian", while tapping his chest. I only found this out today. I thought he didn't know his real name. He points at his photo & says "Boy here". He has the patience to let me hold his hand while he holds a pen and I'll write A-Z, 1-10 and his full name. He's a keen learner, but unfortunately we dont always make the time to teach him.

- Can walk up & downstairs

- Can name lots of pictures in books, his favourite is pictures of animals. And he'll do the animal sound too

- He's starting to make two-word sentences eg "car here" & assigning ownership eg "Daddy's shoes"

- Knows to claim ownership by saying "mine", thanks to Hayley who taught him well

- Learning to jump, also credit to Hayley. We rearranged the furniture in the house & they saw this as a new playground. Hayley started jumping on the couch & she calls her brother to join her. More like INSISTS that he joins her.

Best buddies

2010-09-29T00:02:00.003+10:00

Hayley @ 3.5 yrs old
Julian @ 2 yrs old

Best buddies, play together, watch TV together. Wonder what they'll be like in 10 yrs time.

Last day: Gold Coast trip

2010-09-27T22:54:00.003+10:00

Last day of our hols, we started the day with breakfast downstairs compliments of the hotel. There was an incident the evening before which involved another hotel guest walking into our room. I was out with Hayley while Hubs stayed in because Julian was napping. Hubs was resting on the sofabed in the livingroom when he heard the front door open. He assumed it was me returning so continued laying down. Until a stranger stood in front of him & said, this is my room. The hotel stuffed up big time!! They gave our room to another guest when we haven't even checked out yet. They cancelled our keycards & reissued them and did not charge us for breakfast.

On the flight home, we plonked the kids side by side, one lolly pop each, with Wiggles video. Doesn't take much to keep them happy for 1 hour. I was slightly suffering from a stuffed nose that caused my ears to be blocked & no matter how many times I did pretend yawns they just wont pop.

Day 3: Gold Coast trip

2010-09-26T23:02:00.005+10:00

By Day 3, the weather got worse. It poured & poured the night before. We stayed indoors last night & had Japanese takeaway. We haven't stepped out to the beach or pool at all so Day 3, rain hail or shine, I said we gotta have a swim. Look at the joys on the kids' faces, in their swimmers & floaties.

Where we stayed - Australis Sovereign.

After the morning swim, we went to Qdeck - observatory tower, world's tallest residential tower, highest point above the Gold Coast. We spent all afternoon there & had a good lunch. It was relaxing because the kids were running around freely & enjoying themselves. No Mr Grumpy there.

In the morning, Hubs pointed out to the dark circles under my eyes. Even though I thought I slept well, I actually haven't for the past two nights. I was sharing the queen bed with Hayley and all through the night I was kicked & punched. Hayley spins herself 360 degree & even after being repositioned, she rolls over again. This photo was taken by Hayley.

Our Qdeck lunch - pizza, caesar salad & Heinekin beer (not in pic). Blue water bottle is water for Julian

At the end of the day, returning to the hotel. It was fun, but we were all sooooooooooo tired. Check out their raincoats, came in good use!!

Day 2: Gold Coast trip

2010-09-26T22:28:00.003+10:00

Day 2 was a Sunday. Initially, we planned to go to Dreamworld on Monday to avoid big crowds ie minimise waiting time on ride queues. But weather forecast for the next few days were not looking any better so we took a bet and decided to visit Dreamworld on Sunday.

It drizzled a bit but it didn't pour. Neither Hubs nor I had an umbrella or raincoat. Hayley in her Wiggles raincoat walking towards the entrance.

I have no idea how tall Hayley is. We have a height chart in her room that keeps falling off the wall so I gave up. I didnt realise she was standing next to a poll that says "How do you measure up?" until I saw this pic, it's to assess which rides you can/can't go on.

Saw some wildlife

Wiggles World & Nickelodeon Central were the two attractions that were most suitable for their age-group.

Hayley had a ball at this foamball play factory. She loads in the balls and blasts them off. Julian was playing downstairs, collecting the balls & tidying up.

This train ride was the final ride for the day which finally got the kids to nod off.

Day 1: Gold Coast trip

2010-09-26T15:31:00.010+10:00

I woke up with a list of things in my head that I needed to pack for our Gold Coast trip, despite staying up late the night before packing for the four of us. I am one of those people who would pack half the house if I could, "just in case" I needed them and then still regretting not packing enough. For eg. I said to Hubs we should pack Neurofen. If one of the kids needed it in the middle of the night, where we were gonna go to get it? Anyway, we didn't end up packing Neurofen and ended up buying it from a late night chemist in Gold Coast on the first night because Julian didn't look well. It pretty much came down to that... he didn't look well, he didnt have a fever but he had a runny nose & watery eyes. We're relatively relaxed now with medication like pain relievers, if they don't look well, they get a dose. Helps them to sleep, helps us to sleep.

10mins before the cab arrived, we're ready to go. Hubs arranged for a cab to pick us up from home. We found out that taxis are exempted from having child restraints. Hayley spotted the cab pull up and yelled "Daddy look, the taxi's here!" then Julian followed to check out what's going on.

Nearly 70 bucks later, we arrived at the domestic terminal with ample time to spare. We were tossing between cab & the rail. Rail would've costed $33, but not as reliable. Had to consider factors such as baggage (1 big pully, 1 back-pack, 1 umbrella stroller, my handbag), the kids, the time of the day, the route.

We didnt look like we're dressed to go to the Gold Coast. It was forecasted to rain every day and they were right unfortunately.

Flying with Jetstar economy - looks compact but it wasn't too bad. The seats were leather (or leather-like) better than fabric which I think is gross. Julian sat on my lap for the 1 hour flight.
TOUCH DOWN!! I managed to snap two photos of Hayley on the tarmac, before being approached by an airport worker signalling no photos. I dont know why. Smthg to do with terrorists??

Once we checked in to the hotel, we got the kids to nap. By the time they woke up, it was evening. We dined at The Captain's Table. Hubs did all his research at home & planned on coming here so that saved us time cos we knew where to go. I had 1/2 garlic lobster with sirloin steak; Hubs the seafood platter for one; Hayley the lasagne & chips. I didn't enjoy my meal much bcos Julian was very grumpy. He didnt want to eat anything, didn't accept any bribery food (lollies, bikkies). Turns out he wasn't feeling 100%. After dinner, on the way back to the hotel, we strolled around Surfers Paradise. Checked out the night lights, the rides, late-night chemist where we got Julian Neurofen and a box of tissue for his runny nose.

Meet Hayleys Poo

2010-09-07T23:37:00.009+10:00

It is time for me to do a blog and so I decided to do a posting on a topic that I have taken to heart.....Hayleys Poo.... I also need to justify why I have bought 6 toilet seats.

I am the number one fan of Hayleys Poo. Tonight is the second consecutive night that Hayleys Poo has performed for me. I am so excited that I want to share my experience with Hayleys Poo with you all..Heres how he looks like :

Mind you, he doesn't always look like this. There are times Hayley's Poo is not as shapely and well formed as this. On a bad night, there could just be one big explosion..like an atomic bomb. Don't prefer those..have to clean up.. u know what I mean..

But regardless, I still enjoy the performance. Some of the old toilet seats caused red marks on Hayleys bum so I needed to go find a Deluxe Toilet seat with deluxe padding. Its deluxe alright, theres a little plastic dome at the front to stop the wee-wee from spraying onto the padding. And as an added feature, it comes with handles so that Hayley can hold on to these handles while she's waiting for Hayleys Poo to come out. Even though it costed $17 its worth the investment.... You gotta pay the best price to get the best seat for the show, right?

If any of you feel inspired with my experiences and would like further information or more pictures of Hayley's Poo please do not hesitate to contact me. I will also personally invite you over to meet the 'real' Hayley's Poo himself.

Warning: This blog contains graphic images that may be offensive to some readers (especially those who are currently eating).

What...Too late?!! You're vomiting?!!! Should have put this warning at the beginning? ...Well...thats just too bad!

Julian @ 2 yo, Hayley @ 3 yrs 5 mo

2010-09-07T22:38:00.003+10:00

They 'sayang' each other very much

Mr Couch-potato's typical day - in front of the TV, with a tray of drinks, toys, and/or food

Little Miss Hayley @ 3 yrs, 5 mths. Nearly everyday I ask her, how did you grow up to be so big. You used to be born so tiny at 1.4 kg. Her reply, I eat & drink a lot.

Little Julian Boy @ nearly 2 y.o. His headpiece was craftwork from the library, with one ear missing

Shoes v Toilet Seats

2010-09-07T21:47:00.002+10:00

Yesterday I found out that Hubs bought a toilet seat for Hayley, one of those small toilet seat that fits on top of your regular toilet seat. Simple purchase but that got me angry. Why? Because that is the 6th toilet seat in the house for his little princess, for three toilet bowls in the house.

Seriously, have you got a toilet seat fetish?

Oh, but this one has better padding & I just want her to be comfortable so she'll poo more.

We already have one padded seat, but apparently bcos it's el cheapo it causes her bum red marks. Hmm... pressure on bum, of course it'll go red duh! I'm not understanding the excuse for the purchase. So Hubs brought up this comparison... how many pairs of shoes & clothes do you need, why do you keep buying them?

How do you compare the need for shoes versus toilet seats? How can you compare?

I know my shoes & clothes collection is average.

However, compared to other households, without going round taking a survey, I'm guessing having SIX different toddler toilet seats for a family home is abnormally high.

Hayley is still taking lactulose daily, a poo softener. This gets her pooing every 2-3 days. If on the third day, I happen to plan for Hayley to go out somewhere, Hubs will disagree & gives me a certain dont-you-know-how-important-it-is-that-she-poos-today look. She rarely poos outside of home. She will hold it in until she has the time at home.

In less than a fortnight's time, we're going on our first air-travel with the kids! I'm excited & I'm not worried about Hayley not pooing cos I'm confident she'll do it, with or without the toilet seats.

Ah Boy, help me

2010-08-23T21:36:00.004+10:00

Last time, I mentioned how Julian's strength is at doing puzzles. He's so good at it, he can do it while multitasking ie watching TV, he'll look down do one piece of the puzzle, eyes back on the TV, repeated until it's complete. Hayley, on the other hand, needs lots of guidance & tips along the way. She was really struggling & was losing interest, so I thought I'd give her an incentive. If she completes the puzzle, she can have her icecream.

While she was working on it, the icecream tub came out, and she saw the cones so lost focus. She was no where near done with the puzzle though. I jokingly asked if she wanted her brother to help. She called out to Julian who was watching TV, "Ah Boy, come & help me do the puzzle!". Julian, who always listens to his bossy sister when he's in the mood, walked over to the puzzle & started doing it! Then Hayley took off to get the icecream!

Hayley's interest is in artwork. Her latest thing has been painting, every nite she asks to do painting. Otherwise, it's cutting. A pair of scissors & some junk mail go a long way in keeping her occupied. Her painting is uhmm... not something I'm proud to post on the blog. Hehe... i might be a tough marker, but i thought at her age she should be drawing something eg house, flower, tree. But instead she just strokes the brush here & there aimlessly. She has the interest, but it's not her strength. Her strength is probably her vocabulary. I should post the funnies she says. Maybe another day...

My monkey on a treadmill

2010-08-17T21:48:00.002+10:00

The treadmill at home is occasionally used by Hayley. Rest of the time, it's for storing the kids' many ride-ons. She tells me she needs to exercise so I set it up for her. It has a few safety features... must click here, push that, connect this before it'll run and I told her she can never use it when I'm not watching her because it's dangerous. She's not exactly dressed appropriately for exercising as you'll see on this video. The houserobe is made by MIL & we made good use of it over two winters.

Whose Dream is it?

2010-08-17T12:37:00.002+10:00

For Julian's birthday, we decided to take the kids away to sunny Queensland, before he turns two. Child under two flies for free on domestic trips. To add to the excitement of flying for the first time for them, we're gonna take them to a theme park, Dreamworld on Gold Coast. Children under 3 is free. Before kids & even boyfriends, I went to the Gold Coast for holiday & experienced three of the four theme parks they have. Dreamworld was the fourth that we never went, after I sprained my ankle at Wet n Wild World. Well, more than ten years later, thirteen to be exact, if I remembered correctly, we're going to Dreamworld. But whose Dream is it? I'd say it's more for the kids than for old people like me. I'm not keen on any of the mind-spinning rides anymore. I dont think i was ever keen on them but when you're young, you want to try everything crazy. Dreamworld has Wiggles World and that would be the highlight of the kids' holiday. Hubs & I hope that by then, in a month's time, Julian will be more well-behaved. We purposely bought a netbook to keep him entertained on the 1.5 hours flight. That's also an excuse for Hubs to buy a new toy.

The cousins

2010-08-15T15:27:00.004+10:00

My brother & his family from Malaysia came for a holiday. It's the first time the cousins have "bonded"... the last time was when Hayley was just a few months old. Hayley & Julian played well with the bigger boys. Zachary's turning 11 yrs old, Christen is turning 8. Hayley went to the Blue Mountains with my parents & my brother's family for a day trip. It was a 2 hour train ride one way. My parents were quite willing to take Hayley. In fact, they suggested taking her, but not Julian. Hayley is much easier to handle. She is very sensible for her age, and very cautious. She holds on to you to make sure she doesn't go missing. We placed a sticker on her & a card in her backpack with our contact details & she told my mum, I have a card, in case I go missing. At the end of the daytrip, when we picked her up in the evening, she was very hyperactive, can't stand still, skipping around the house & showing no signs of tiredness despite skipping her daytime nap. Turns out she had too much junk food from the cousins!!

What's happening... update on Julian

2010-08-14T23:21:00.005+10:00

Julian is turning two next month. Nearly a big boy, but still a crybaby & still loves his stuffed turtle for bedtime. I haven't blogged for over a month because I've been busy & lazy. Everytime I get online, it's either for work or for online window shopping. Still haven't done our tax return and still haven't downloaded photos from the camera. Tonight, I'll do an update on Julian.

Julian's Hidden Talents:
- Likes things to be organised & orderly. He walked downstairs & on the last step he accidentally dragged one side of Daddy's upstairs houseslippers onto the downstairs floor. His rule is upstairs slippers should stay upstairs. So he bent over, picked up that one side, & put it back on the stairs. Then stretched to get the other side of the slippers (that's already upstairs) so he can align the pair side by side.
- Playing in the backyard, he went to pick kumquats. He then lined all of them of different sizes in the order of smallest to largest, and counted them. Except he counts like this... two, three, four, (and you start thinking wow, this boy can count!), three, two.
- He loves to slot things like flashcards back in a box, pencils back in a box. He can concentrate on doing this activity for a long time.
- He shows talent in solving puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. He grabs a piece, looks around to figure out where that piece matches in the whole picture.
- He has strong opinions about how things should be done. When it's milk time, he'll insist his houseshoes are removed. He uses a sing-song phrase, shoes off. When he wants TV, he'll say remote or cow (cos he loves watching animals). His vocabulary isn't as strong as Hayley's at the same age. The smartest phrase to date that he can say is "Barney's song" when he hears Barney's Yankee Doodle theme song.
- He is a generous child. When he gets something (eg lolly), no matter how much he wants it, if we asked him to give it to Hayley, he will give it to her, then returns for his share.
- He is talented in walking in adult shoes, with his houseboots on. Why are kids so fascinated in trying on adult shoes?

The not-so-good talents:
The TTs have striked @ 22 months. The Terrible Twos. Over the last fortnight, we have seen new signs of assertiveness from Julian. He insists on doing exactly what he wants to do. He wanted to brush his teeth before milk, but I didn't know. He insisted on going back upstairs to brush & chucked a fit until I finally understood what he wanted. He has thrown himself down on the floor in a fit of temper if he doesn't get his way or you don't do as he says... which is obviously a problem because he can't express himself in words & we don't always understand his demands. At times, for example, he'll ask for something that he doesn't even want, just to see if he has enough power to get it. Why does he insist on having the red milk bottle when we already prepared milk in the green bottle?!! Why does he insist on lying on the brown bean bag & not the red one? We have been experiencing his temper episodes everyday lately & it can last as long as half an hour. We let him release his feelings & let him cry it out. When he gets into that mood, nothing pleases him.

When he's not in a bad mood, Julian can be very affectionate. He'll sit on my lap while watching TV or come & give us hugs. He waves goodbye to everyone when he leaves & hands out flying kisses.

Days of the week

2010-07-08T21:56:00.008+10:00

When I talk to Hayley, I tell her the day of the week that we're in. I've been saying this since forever, and she's learning the concept of days of the week. Some conversations we've had:

Me: Yesterday was Sunday, you went to church. Today is Monday, you go to Ma's house. Tomorrow is Tuesday, you stay at home.

Me: (in the morning, when I'm waking her up) Hayley, today's Monday. Where do you go on Mondays? She doesn't really know, most of the time she's guessing but one day she'll remember

Me: Hayley, on Saturday, we're going to have dinner with Chia Gong, Chia Po (my parents).

Hayley: No, they come on Tuesday (yes, they're here every Tuesday, but sometimes they come for the weekend too)

Me: Hayley, on Sunday, we're going to the city

Hayley: But Sunday we go to church

My parents often take the kids to the playgroup at our local library. They go there for craftwork & storytime. Julian really pays attention to the teacher & would sit still throughout the whole story time. Hayley on the other hand has very short attention span. Cant sit still, and wants to go off & do her own stuff. Anyway, during school holidays, the playgroup isn't on. Last Tuesday, we all forgot that it's the holidays so they went & found out that there's no teacher.

Hayley: Chia Po, how come there's no teacher today?

Grandma: I dont know Hayley.

Hayley: Maybe it's Public Holiday.

Grandma: Oh, that's right, it's school holidays! That's why there's no teacher today.

Hayley: Why no warning?

When I take the kids to the library, I read Mills & Boons type of books or borrow them. Obviously, the kids are very observant. The last time I took them there, Julian grabbed those books & brought them over to me. And kept bringing more & more over. Then Hayley followed! I was so embarrassed (bcos of the pictures on the covers). Hayley even told my mum that I like those books & she'll borrow them for me.

Hayley @ 39 mths, Julian @ 21 mths

2010-07-08T21:49:00.001+10:00

Parent teacher's nite

2010-07-05T21:42:00.004+10:00

I spoke too soon... 7th day with nappy-free daytime nap... Hayley wee'ed in her sleep at MIL's. That's the not-so-good news. The good news was, she did a poo on her own & that's the 2nd consecutive day !!! Hooray !!

After work, I went to parent-teacher's nite. My first ever, to sit down with her teacher at daycare to talk about her progress, her strengths, what activities are planned for second half of the year to develop areas that need strengthening. They dont use the word weakness.

Strengths - extensive vocabulary, expresses herself well (except the times when she's upset & missing Mommy she would scream & be incapable of using her words); Fine motor skills, has a good tripod grasp of pens/brushes; Shown improvement in using the scissors, being able to cut out various shapes; Can trace to write her own name; Loves craftwork, would rather wait for her turn to do craft than to go & play.

Requires strengthening - gross motor skills, more jumping, balancing, skipping, hopping. During group time activity, when she was asked to jump over something, or walk along a beam she refused to do it. I asked her why, she said "bcos it's dangerous"; Being able to recall & tell a story

Overall, good report.

Milestone: 3 yrs 3 mths Day-trained

2010-07-03T23:53:00.003+10:00

We started toilet-training Hayley at 2 years 2 months. A bit over a year later, at 3 years 3 months, she is fully day-trained! Meaning, she doesn't need nappy for daytime nap. On Tuesday, when my Mom was here, she put Hayley in for her nap. Except she forgot to slap on a nappy. By the time I realised this, Hayley's already been asleep for a while. So I figured it's worth taking the risk & see what happens. Worse is I just have to change her sheets & pants.

The following 3 days were childcare days so I advised the carers to try going w/o nappy. It was a success! Hayley is so proud to tell us that she doesn't need the nappy anymore. She asked me "how come I need nappy at night but not day time?". It's because daytime she sleeps for 2 hours only but night time she sleeps much longer.

Instead of "why", she asks "how come" A LOT. Might be my influence? Do Malaysians say how come instead of why?

"How come the bird poo here?" referring to the poo that Julian just touched on the retaining brick in our back garden. Becos birds dont have toilets.

stab in the heart

2010-06-27T22:23:00.003+10:00

It's quite frustrating getting Hayley to poo. And when I'm frustrated, I can't hide it. We started Hayley on 20ml Actilax syrup (aka lactulose), a poo softener, 2 days ago. That's what the paed prescribed. 48 hrs later, she still shows no signs of needing to empty her bowels. After sitting her on the toilet for a while, she yells out her bum is getting sore, she wants to come out. I clean her bum & find stains. Poo stains but no poo! Repeat this three times in one day and you get one very frustrated Mommy. So I tell her, "No good Hayley! Your poo is there, but why can't you poo it out?!!". Her response...

I want Daddy. I love Daddy. She wants me out of the toilet, out of her sight so I can't give her a hard time.

Just before bedtime, we asked her to sit on the toilet to try again. This time she didn't want me in the bathroom. She wants Daddy because "you always scold me".

It was a stab in the heart to hear my girl say that. Really hurts. Am I that bad a mom? So I sulked and ignored her & left Daddy to do bedtime with her. Then she insisted that she wants Mommy. I want Mommy. I love Mommy. She wants Daddy to leave so I will tuck her in.

I said to Hubs, she is so manipulative.

At the end of the day, still no poo ! Fourth day already....

Pay to Play

2010-06-15T21:29:00.005+10:00

This is a belated blog entry... 3 weeks ago we took a day off to take the kids out to an indoor play centre - Lollypop's Playland. It's an indoor PAY centre, where you pay them to let your kids play there. We could've gone to the park to play for free, or shopping centres' playgrounds. It is something different for the kids to experience.

Entry prices:
$10.90 for Hayley
Free for Julian - we used a buy 1 get 1 free coupon, saved $7.90 (12-23 months)
Adults $4 each includes tea/coffee

Food:
Only food purchased at the centre is allowed. But you can bring baby food. I brought some homebaked chips in a food flask. Everything on their menu is overpriced. I enjoyed my cup of hot chocolate that I didn't have to make myself! And the kids enjoyed the marshmallows that came with it.

Facilities:
They do have a wide range of play equipment. Between Julian & Hayley, they tried everything except the area for PC games. For one, our kids are too young for it... but even so, I think kids already spend too much time in front of the TV at home.

We went on a school day so the centre wasn't that crowded. Hubs & I took turns to watch them. The place uses a wristband security system that ensures no one else can take your kid away. But we only trust ourselves so one of us was always watching them. The other one can sit back & relax, have a cuppa. The kids loved it. They appreciate the treat.

Would we go back again? Perhaps... but not any time soon. Maybe another playcentre. When we get another free coupon.

Who's my favourite child?

2010-06-14T16:35:00.005+10:00

Ask him, "Julian, how to do counting?" (actually, no one calls him Julian. Everyone calls him Boy, or Ah Boy so he'll probably ignore you if you called him Julian)

Julian: "Tooooo, treeeee, forrrrrrrrr". He skips the number one.

And Hayley imitates his funny pronunciation. My colleague has a theory that Hayley feels left out when I give Julian attention & say he's cute when he says something funny. So she imitates his acts, his pronunciation. I think there may be some truth to it. She would often imitate him, then call me to get my attention, expecting me to say "Oh you're so cute Hayley".

Do you think I have a favourite child? If you have one child, that child must be your favourite. Having two, some people would say the daughter is Mommy's favourite, the son is Daddy's favourite. Or vice versa. Well, I did not recognise that I had a favourite until my colleague pointed it out. Except... both have been my favourite at one moment in time. Depends on what they've done, their personality or behaviour at a point in time. I love both of them equally. Sometimes one of them make me mad or specifically, their behaviour makes me mad so I love the other one more. I'm sure they can figure out when they're not Mommy's favourite.

Ask if the kids have a favourite parent... my guess is, they're more likely to say with a very loud voice "Mommy!!!" (if Julian can understand that question). Hayley will most definitely say "Mommy" except for those times when I discipline her.

a day of our lives...

2010-06-09T21:16:00.007+10:00

I decided tonight, I had enough of working at night, I just want to sit in front of the tv & blog. I haven't blogged for a while because of work. I'd like to blog about the kids and us more but just never get enough time & motivation to do it. Certainly when people ask me about something in the past, like when the kids started teething, when we started control crying, details of me expressing milk, I dont remember the details.

For tonight, I'll blog about our day today. A typical Wednesday working day....

I got out of bed at 7am. We never need an alarm clock anymore ever since we had kids. Everyone was still asleep, but I got woken up thinking, worrying about something at work. I got dressed, prettied myself up (that's just brush hair, earrings & perfume) and walked to the kids' rooms to wake them up. This morning, I went into Julian's room first. He saw me & said "Daddy. Nappy". He wants Daddy to change his nappy, not me. Funny boy. So I left his room to let Hubs do his duty & I went to Hayley's room. Earlier some time during the night, Hayley apparently walked to our room & laid next to me on our bed before Hubs convinced her to sleep in her own room. I slept so well, I was not aware of this at all. Anyway, this am it wasn't too much of a challenge to get Hayley changed for daycare. Wed, Thu, Fri are childcare days. Some mornings, she wakes up moody when she didnt sleep well. Resists getting changed, resists getting her nappy removed, resists everything. The more cooperative she is, the less late we are.

This morning we actually had time to feed her before dropping her off at daycare. Some mornings, we just dont have the time so she goes in with empty stomach. I know, bad parents. We are so time-poor in the mornings. But we pay daycare to feed her anyway, so I would request for breakfast which is usually toast with jam/margarine/Vegemite.

Meanwhile, Julian has his first bottle of milk. He drinks about 150ml first thing in the am. We decided not to wean him off the bottle, unlike what we did with Hayley at 16 mo. It's his comfort bottle, he likes the routine & he enjoys it, so let it be.

By 8 am, the four of us are loaded in the car with our laptops, lunch bags, kids' bags. It's a crazy time of the day but we manage. First stop is daycare. I always bring Hayley in while Hubs & Julian wait in the car. She's coping much better now & more settled. Not very long ago, she was still crying at every drop off.

Next stop is MIL's to have a quick brekkie and drop off Julian. Brekkie is almost always congee.

By the time we leave MILs for the drive to work, it would be close to 8:30am and we're meant to start work at that time! Both Hubs & I work in the same suburb so it's very convenient for me to be chauffeured door to door. If traffic's good, I'll be at work by 9. Otherwise it's anything between 9 and 9:30. Our workplace is flexible, no one gets into trouble for their working hours as long as you get your work done.

A colleague today commented on my daggy fashion sense some 6-7 yrs ago. She said when she first knew me, I'd typically wear white shirt, black baggy pants and flats, with long hair pulled back into a low ponytail. I was daggy! Gosh, no one has ever given me that feedback before! Not friends, not my family. And after I got married, she noticed I changed to wear 'racy clothes'. I dont even know what that means, but I take that as a compliment. Today, I was wearing a Review babydoll floral top with black leggings & black high boots. The conversation on my dressing started with a colleague complimenting "nice dress" & I corrected him saying it's a top. Everyone thought I was wearing a short dress (not a long top) which was unlike me, especially at work where we have a smart casual dresscode. Short dresses, mini-skirts, body-hugging dresses are not me. But seriously, I didn't realise I changed in the way I dress over the years. Apparently, each time I returned from maternity leave, I changed my wardrobe. I think it's actually because I had the time to flip glossy magazine pages & get ideas on fashion ! btw, I've been with the same company for 9 years. I wonder if I'll retire with them as well! I dont think of quitting bcos I'm so close to getting long service leave (8 weeks+ leave).

5-5:30pm Hubs comes & picks me up. Tonight, we gave my colleague a lift home. She was unfortunate enough to have had her car stolen from her driveway. Poor girl had a run of bad luck. The week before that her Jack Russell terrier was mauled by a bigger dog. Tonight's trip home involved two girls chatting like school girls whilst Hubs drove. I like.

About 6ish, we arrive at in-laws to pick up the kids. Whenever the kids hear the jiggling of Hubs' carkeys, they'd come running to the front door, ready for hugs. Such a good feeling to be greeted this way after a long day at work, dont you think? Some days I'm greeted by 3 kids. Cousin Bailey would call Hubs Daddy. I'm sure he knows who's his Daddy but he says it to imitate Hayley. MIL says Hayley is his idol. He follows everything that she does (good & bad), including whacking Julian. We get a quick update from MIL about what the kids were up to, what they ate, who misbehaved, how long they slept etc before we pack up to go home. Julian always does a round of goodbyes, very cute wave, says "bye bye" & a flying kiss if you asked him to. This evening, he was saying bye bye to FIL who was standing up. At his height, FIL didn't see Julian waving nor did he hear him say bye bye. Julian got upset & heartbroken that he was being ignored & burst into tears. So cute :) Hayley on the other hand is always reluctant to say goodbye. And greet people. No matter how many times I tell her her behaviour is rude.

Drive home only takes 2 mins from in-laws. Once we get home, Hubs & I get our dinners & shower while the kids play on their own. They dont spend much time at home on weekdays, so coming home is like being in a new playground.

9pm we start bedtime by switching off the tv & lights. Julian gets his last milk bottle. Hayley insists she wants to have her milo, on the beanbag, in the sports bottle, one that you have to tilt & has a teat. She wants what Julian has, except she doesnt have a milk bottle. She places two beanbags side-by-side ready for milk time. Again, I think that's cute :)

Once the kids are in bed, Hubs & I go on the computers. One for him, one for me. That's married life with 2 kids for you in this household.

Schooling

2010-05-24T23:41:00.004+10:00

A visit to the hair-dressers today made me think seriously about which school our kids should go to. My hairdresser's a lovely man. A Korean man who has 2 young schooling boys in our local area. I felt chatty this arvo so I asked him questions about whether he sent his boys to pre-school or they went straight to kindy from childcare; which school they are going to go to. Hayley's childcare centre has a pre-school program the year before she goes to kindy but it's different from an actual pre-school. I dont know much about pre-schools, but i know they do the hours of school, BYO lunch, and no government rebates.

Because both our kids are baptised, we can consider sending them to either public or Catholic school. Mr Hairdresser told me how he put in an application for his 2 boys for 2017 into a reputable Catholic school. Seriously? That's 7 years away!! Because good schools are high in demand, he advised me to start doing the same for Hayley. I checked out a few schools on the website: http://www.myschool.edu.au/ and did some readings...

If you plan to send your children to public school, the decision will be relatively straightforward as you will generally attend a school in a zone determined by your residential address [Our public school doesnt have a good result on the myschool report so I think that's out of the question. No public school unless we move]. If you wish to send your child to an independent school however, you will need to do your research early as many have long waiting lists and require you to apply early to secure a place. [Hayley is going to school in 2012 when she turns 5, so I thought I don't have to worry about applying till 2011, but Mr Hairdresser says that demand is high, and especially when myschool report ranks schools, every Mom & Dad will try to get their kid into the better school]

Gosh, such a big decision to make. I feel like our decision now, right or wrong decision, will set their life's path. The decision for now is, Hayley will stay in childcare for the next two years, we decided no pre-school. Kindy will be the local Catholic school. Julian will follow wherever Hayley goes. There, decided!

Julian: The 19 month update

2010-05-15T21:34:00.003+10:00

I find it hard to remember my kids' age. When people ask me how old my kids are, I have to think what their d.o.b. is and what month & year we're in. To get a quick answer out, I'll simply say Hayley's 3 and Julian's 1 plus. SO... my boy is coming to 19 months. I know I haven't been keeping record of his milestones for a while so here it is now.

- he watches heaps of TV. If he doesnt like what's showing, he'll get you the remote control & complain. He only ever likes cartoons and kids shows. Is that damaging? I make an effort now to limit TV-time bcos I find at times he gets grumpy & irritated when the TV's off. He doesnt know what else he can do without TV.
- he loves animals on tv and books. Give him a picture book, ask him to point out particular animals, he can pick out a cow, duck, elephant, dog, cat, donkey, cricket, monkey, chicken, sheep, rooster, horse, mouse, pig, lion, tiger, owl, bird, giraffe. For most of these animals, he can say the names & the sound they make. I'd like to claim credit for teaching him these, but some of these he learnt from TV
- he can repeat 2 and 3 syllable words although his pronunciation isn't always perfect. Hayley often mimics the wrong pronunciation, like donut, he says no-nut.
- we think he might be left-handed - just bcos he uses it more than the right like grasping things, or self-feeding
- he's interested in Lego, can take them apart & put them back together. If he wants to show off, he'll bring his masterpiece to you & say "look look" and expects sincere praising from you. One time, my big brother wasn't sincere with his "WOW, you're so clever" praising, Julian sensed it & burst into tears. What a sensitive little boy...
- he has quite a bad temper when frustrated like not getting the TV, being carried when he doesn't want you to, being fed when he doesn't want you to. He'll shout a loud "No!!"
- he is attached to one soft toy, a green RUSS turtle that was actually Hayley's. He only wants it for bedtime at home.

He doesn't go to childcare yet. MIL looks after him 4 days a week. Have placed him on the waiting list at the centre that Hayley goes to for April next year when he's 2.5 yrs old and hopefully toilet-trained. His two best friends are Bailey & Hayley (pictured below):

Julian started getting friendly with the house dog one day. He sat next to the dog & started patting its head. Hayley then followed. No way the kids will get a real dog as a pet, nor a cat. I think I have brainwashed Hayley into thinking that dogs can bite therefore are dangerous & cats won't bite, but they can attack you.

what makes me mad

2010-04-26T15:52:00.004+10:00

This morning i prepared cereal breakfast for Hayley, the usual stuff of weetbix, branflakes, psyllium husk with soy milk. I dont do congee or warm breakfast (which is what she's used to at MIL's). If i can eat cereal for breakfast, she's having cereal for breakfast or else. Or else what ? Or else all hell breaks lose. She was taking forever to swallow the first mouthful. She kept it in her mouth and can do that for a long time. She does that quite often with food she's not keen on or if she's not hungry. So I gave up feeding her, I went out to hang the laundry & left her inside the house. Hopefully she'll come to realise she should listen to me & eat what I give. Later when I was back indoors, I found her undies & pants removed, left on the floor downstairs & she's upstairs with Hubs & Julian. Hubs asked me, why did you not give her pants? Hayley said you did not give her pants. What da... of course I gave her pants! What makes me mad is lying. Even if it's from kids. I always tell Hayley dont lie when she makes up stories like so & so pushed her when really she tripped herself.

For at least an hour, between Hubs & I we tried to convince her to eat her cereal. One mouthful can take 20 mins before she swallows it. Finally, I've had enough. Fuming, I tipped the whole bowl into the bin. She probably only had 3 spoons in total. I was and still am mad at Hubs for siding Hayley, kept saying maybe she likes it warm, maybe she's not hungry, maybe the cereal's different from the other times. Argghhh... you are not helping. I had not one person to coax to eat, but two, I had two resistance! I am still mad at Hayley for not listening to me. She can be so stubborn. Wonder where she got that characteristic from? She ended up not eating and drinking anything when we left to go out. But she didnt starve, she had all the energy to play & hop around.

That's it. I'm not feeding her anymore, until this fire burns out.

Conquering Poo

2010-04-25T16:11:00.005+10:00

We have one kid who can poo effortlessly up to three times a day on a regular basis and we have another kid who poos once every three days, if we tried very hard.

Julian: This boy has no problems at all with doing his big business. Doesn't matter what he eats or doesnt eat. He only does it when he's standing up, in the nappy (bcos he's not toilet-trained yet). He doesnt do it while he's sitting down. If he's in the stroller & he has to do it, he'll complain to want to come out. If he happens to have not pooed for a day (which is very rare), be prepared for a big one first thing the next morning.

Hayley: This girl will probably grow up remembering that everyone fusses over her poo. We make a big effort in ensuring she gets a high fibre diet on a daily basis. Not all of these are eaten in a day, they're varied each day but they'll be foods such as weetbix, high fibre branflakes, psyllium husks, switched her from cow's milk to soy milk, popcorn, corn, water throughout the day, Medihoney (100% Manuka Honey Active 10+), barley, prune juice, sesame seeds, sesame oil, Metamucil fibresure (100% natural inulin fiber), vegies, fruits.

We even resorted to non-natural remedies, over the counter pharmacy products like enema, glycerine suppository, Parachoc, actilax. I am very reluctant to use these, so they're all administered by Hubs.

Currently, Hayley poos & wees in the toilet. We have stopped the non-natural stuff bcos we get really worried about the harm they cause. If we slack off one day in ensuring she gets a high fibre diet, that could mean no poo for longer than three days. And the longer she holds it in, the harder the poo gets so we do everything we can to ensure we dont get to that stage. Whenever we hear "I want to poo", it's music to our ears. We give her rewards (junk food), lots of praises & encouragement. At least at this age, she understands our reasoning for making her eat some of the food that may not be very tasty. She hates the suppository & enema bcos "it hurts" so if she doesnt eat what we feed, we scare her with the two words. Cruel, but it's for her own good.

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Purely by coincidence, around the same time last year, I blogged about the kids' poo
Poo status 12 mths ago

Cousin Bailey turns TWO

2010-04-25T14:15:00.010+10:00

We celebrated cousin Bailey's 2nd birthday & cousin Lillian's baptism on Saturday. With the kids all getting older, that made me realise how old I'm getting too. For once in my lifetime, I wished I could freeze my age. I have been in denial for a long time that I'm no longer in my 20s. I started using anti-aging facial products. I remind myself I shouldn't shop in the same stores or buy the brands teenage girls do. My daughter tells me I have white hair! One day Hayley, you can help Mommy dye my hair.

Enough about me, this is about the party.

The kids bathed & dressed up ready for their cousins' party. These clothes were bought by my brother, Simon & sis-in-law. Jeans are from friends, Peter & Jenny.

Family photo using the timer shot. Not bad I must say. Julian's eyes were looking at the TV (as usual).

Once we arrived at Bailey's house, the kids went into Bailey's room & helped themselves with all his toys. The last time Julian was there was a year ago, at 7 mths old. It's so much more fun at this age. He roamed around the house on his own, looking so busy going from room to room.

Aunty Yen (Hubs' sis) with the two nieces. Yen, I didn't ask for your permission before publishing this. I'm sure you wouldn't mind. Here are three very gorgeous girls....

Kids gathered round for the birthday song. Birthday boy, Bailey, is in blue next to Hayley. The cake was very yummy ice-cream cake with edible scanned picture of Curious George. Hayley's into colouring nowadays, so I printed a picture of Curious George with a party hat & a birthday cake for her (and me) to colour in. It was originally a picture of 5 candles & I edited it to show two only. So proud of my achievement :) I'm more proud of Hayley's colouring of course, that she wants to do something special for her cousin.

Julian finally willing to sit down with the other kids at the table. He pointed at the candle & said what sounded like candle then try to blow it over & over again. Bailey tried to motion Julian away, they're my candles to blow, not yours. These two boys have a love-hate relationship. MIL minds them both on some days when we're at work. They would fight over the same toys, just for the fun of fighting to see who wins. At this age, fighting means see who shrieks the loudest, who runs off the fastest with the toy, and a bit of a push and a whack. But other times, you would see Bailey showing some 'big brother taking care of the younger one' affection by getting Julian a piece of biscuit or his water bottle. They're only five months apart.

By the end of the night, the younger kids were getting grumpy & tired. Julian was quite happy to go home when I asked him. Hayley could've played longer but after cake & presents, that's really the end of a party. Before that, while we were all eating she kept asking me, Mommy where is Bailey's party? I said, what do you mean? This IS the party. She associates parties with cakes & presents time. Bailey's parents were left to clean up the mess caused by ten little ones and us adults :) Many more parties to look forward to !!

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You might like to look at the cousins same time last year:

Bailey's First Birthday Party

The Royal Easter Show - 12th Apr

2010-04-17T15:58:00.005+10:00

Hubs & I took Monday off to take the kids to the Easter Show which comprises of agricultural shows, an amusement park with rides/competitions/games and an arts & craft fair etc. There is a lot more to the Show but for us, we brought the kids there for the rides. I was hoping to let them experience the animal nursery where kids can pat farm animals. We didnt get around to that, ran out of time. Not much of a loss really, recently they had a similar experience in a kiddie farm, they went into the enclosure and neither of them wanted to touch any of the animals whereas the other kids were holding, patting, feeding them.

Pricing - it wasn't cheap! The cost was AUD$33 per adult, kids 3 and under are free to enter (not free for rides!), all tickets include return transport. We went with Hubs' mum & grandma as well. We bought the tickets at a discounted rate so probably saved 20%. But that doesn't include food and souvenirs/ Showbags. These are bags full of products from different companies that are put together and sold for a supposedly discounted price. The kids went home with Chuggington, Bob the Builder & Thomas the Tank each ranging between $16.50 and $20 (or was it $22 - I dont remember). Their daddy, grandma & great-grandma bought them.

We packed our lunches & snacks so that's some savings. Hayley saw some kids buying an iced drink, the ones with shaved ice with some colouring. She was attracted to the blue colour & asked me to buy it for her. Five bucks for some shaved ice in a small cup? NO THANKS. Luckily with Hayley, she's always been good with accepting no & she understands when I say something is expensive & doesn't continue demanding for it. She did however ask me, "how come the other kids can buy them?". She always wants to understand why something is happening. If I say let's go home, have lunch & then nap, she wants to know why the other kids (in the whole shopping centre or playground) are not going home to have their lunch & nap.

Rides: We bought carnival coupons 40 coupons for $37. Frugal Mommy found some buy 1 get 1 free coupons so that stretched the dollar a bit. Luckily, we chose a working day to go because otherwise the ride queues would've been horrendous & we would've wasted time queueing up at each ride. We were working against the kids' body clock that tells them they have to have an afternoon siesta. Especially for Julian, he gets cranky & whiny if he's not home for his nap as he refuses to sleep in the stroller. The first ride was the Adventure Island - 6 coupons (1 coupon equivalent to $1). It's a mini-roller-coaster, one uphill, one downhill & guaranteed to get a splash of water. Mommy & Hayley would've costed $12 but we had a buy 1 get 1 free so that's more reasonable. Hayley enjoyed the thrill.

Ride #2 - Elephant Jet - 5 coupons each. Julian & Hayley went on the flying elephant ride. Would've costed 10 coupons but we had buy 1 get 1 free again :) Seeing "jeh jeh" sitting down first, Julian was willing to get on.

$10 to play a game of pulling strings & seeing what is attached to the string. She won a medium sized plush Pooh Bear & Julian got a little teddy bear.

What's a kids carnival without the carousel right? We had to give them a ride even though they've experienced that before in Darling Harbour. 5 coupons each - would've costed $20 for me, MIL, Hayley & Julian but we used buy 1 get 1 free.

Mini Chairs - 4 coupons - Hayley went on 2 rounds of it. Julian just watched from the side fence. He's too young for it, it's a swing that takes you round & round. Hayley had her eyes shut for most of the time but she still wanted more.

Wacky Worm Family Coaster - this one's a roller coaster that's tailor-made for tots, with a 5m drop, banked turns and an apple tunnel.

After using up all the ride coupons, they played in the playground before heading off home. Too bad we couldn't stay for the fireworks. Hayley thinks you can have fireworks day and night. But we could see them from our place at 8:50pm every night for the 2 weeks of the Show. That's good enough.

H for Hayley

2010-04-17T15:49:00.002+10:00

Artwork from childcare. Give her a blank piece of paper she'll scribble all over it, and write the letter H everywhere. Can you count how many H's there are?

Brotherly Sisterly Love

2010-04-11T23:07:00.004+10:00

It's cute watching my two monkeys together. They miss each other when one's not there. They play well together (most of the time). They copy cat each other eg dancing, actions & what shoes to wear. When Hayley wears crocs, he insists on crocs. When she wears sandles, he insists on sandles. He refused to wear his cap at one time, but was willing to wear it when Hayley wears hers. Hayley sometimes acts like she's the mother, following what I would say/do to Julian. She calls him "Ah Boy" cos that's what I call him. She holds his hand to give him direction. She comforts him when he throws a tantrum by asking "you want lolly?". That immediately gets him to stop whining but then he waits for the lolly which doesnt always come. She disciplined him today when he started throwing toys by holding his hand & giving it a smack (hardly painful one), cos that's what I did a few minutes ago. Julian burst into tears that sent the message "Jeh Jeh hit me!" Fake Boo hoo hoo. Hayley then got scared that she'll get into trouble with me bcos I saw the incident. She asked "Why Ah Boy did not cry with Mommy?". Translate: Why didnt Julian cry when Mommy smacked his hand just now but he's crying when I smack him?

Btw, the boy who called me Daddy all this time has started calling me "Mommy" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! @ 18 mo

On colouring

2010-04-11T22:21:00.006+10:00

It hit me recently why Hayley was scribbling all over pictures rather than colouring inside the pictures. She hasn't been taught the concept of staying within the lines! She didnt know that that's what she's supposed to do. When she was younger, colouring meant being given a blank piece of paper, some crayons & it didn't matter what she was scribbling & she's continued this practice... until 3 yrs old. I brought out some colouring books that had small, defined areas & encouraged her to try to stay within the lines. Using small areas allows her to change colours more often too. She gets bored with one colour very quickly. With a few more practices, I can see her skills improving. Learning to stay in the line is good for helping kids to refine their fine motor skills (ie small finger muscles) & helps hand/eye coordination. It's funny watching Hayley initially getting used to this concept. She would start with colouring carefully, then something on TV or Julian distracts her attention so she looks up but her fingers continued colouring & I had to remind her to look where she's colouring again.

THEN - Scribbles

NOW - colouring within the lines. Mommy can't help but 'tidied up' by filling in the gaps, her little fingers find it hard to colour close to the lines

Dora PJs

2010-04-11T21:37:00.007+10:00

Posing for the camera at bedtime in her Dora PJs birthday present

Pooh everywhere

2010-04-05T00:28:00.004+10:00

Hayley in her Pooh Bear PJs, one of her birthday gifts from Aunty Yen & Uncle Matt. She is surrounded by Pooh Bear characters in her bedroom. Irony is... she still has problems pooing everyday. She says, "Pooh everywhere, but no poo here" (pointing to herself).