School Holiday!

Oh well, not that Charlotte is excited about the school holiday but she is definitely very happy with many of her cousins are back from other places and keeping her company.

First, I received a call last week from my nephew Isaiah...

Isaiah: Kor Kor, when are you bring Charlotte here again?

Me: Did you miss Charlotte?

Isaiah: Yes la, bring her her and play la

Me: Ok, but please check with you mommy first

Isaiah: (asking mommy)...yes, mommy says ok

Me: Ok, KorKor bring Charlotte on Wednesday ok?

Isaiah: Yay!!!

I agreed and took Charlotte there last Wednesday and Friday. She was very happy with her KoKo's company even though the KoKos were playing computer games, Nintendo Wii by themselves. She was just happy seeing them shouting and screaming as the game gets more and more exciting.

Last Sunday, we took 6 kids to EQ for swimming. We had children ages from 2 to 14 (MIL has 11 children in total and 8 out of 11 are married with kids. Just imagine when all are back for holiday. The house is always full of people and noise too). Charlotte enjoyed it so much more compared to usual, when it was just mommy and daddy with her in the pool. Also, since she is the youngest in the family everyone is treating her like a princess, with the extra TLCs.

Everybody is in their most stunning swim suit and with the biggest smile posting for the picture...See how my little princess is so proud of being around with all the big brothers and sisters.

No pictures were taken when we were in the pool because both Pat and I were in the pool taking care of the children. Charlotte, of course was in her float but after awhile she learnt that she was the only one in the float and everyone else was free a a bird. She first refused to be pushed, she wantz to kick and move by herself like the rest. She doesn't know that no matter how hard she tried, she is only going in a circle. We had to push her secretly from the back so that she can move forward (ha! ha!). Later, she decided to come out from the float and swim like the rest. So, daddy had to carry her in the pool for about a good 30min before we call it a day.

Luckily getting her out from the pool wasn't very difficult as I thought it would be. I first asked all the big brothers and sisters to get out from the pool, then I know Charlotte would follow. Good strategy? Yes, I learnt too :)

After the clean-up, we spent a short while at the pool side and the kids were having fun playing together.

Later that evening, Charlotte slept from 5.00pm till 7.15pm. I had to wake her up in purpose, otherwise we will have a sleepless night.

Potty Training (Part II)

Part I was posted on Oct 31st and that was about one month after I started to potty train Charlotte. Immediately after that post, I told Brenda to stop wearing diaper for Charlotte during her day naps. To our surprise, it was a big suggest too! No accident happened so far.

Charlotte naps twice a day still, and since we stopped to let her wear diaper we will bring her to wee wee before she goes to bed and immediately after she wakes up from her nap. Initially, we had to quickly bring her the potty because we can tell from her facial expression that she couldn't hold it any longer but slowly this process is getting less tense. She is able to hold a few more seconds while we bring her the potty. She is now diaper free during the day.

In Part I, she wasn't able to tell when she needs to wee wee but she is now able to do so. Although she says "ng ng" to indicate both wee wee and pass motion, she is able to tell us every time she needs the potty. So, we started let her to go to her music class without wearing diaper a couple of weeks back. We also let her go diaper free when we go out on a short trip. We have yet to let her go shopping with us without diaper because of a few reasons: 1. the public toilet hygiene and 2. the toilet location (distance).

Now I get to save more on diaper cost and Charlotte is very happy too (she used to cry and tried to pull down her diaper when we put it on for her). She only took ~2months time to potty train. She is a fast learner, isn't she?

Last One (for this year)

Our little princess turned 2 on Nov 12th, 2007, she gets to cut not 1, not 2 but 3 birthday cakes this year. I got her first birthday cake during the playgroup gathering, that was 1 week before her birthday. We celebrated her 2nd birthday officially on Nov 11th, invited PIL to join for a small party.

Last week, my parents came back from vacation and we celebrated Charlotte's birthday again. Originally, we planned to bring Charlotte to the beach and have dinner at the Sigi's. Unfortunately, I was down with flu and the weather turned cloudy in the late evening. So, we changed the plan and my mom gladly offered us her home cook steamboat buffet treat. I was glad too as having dinner at home makes everything else easy, especially feeding Charlotte.

Since I was down with flu, I was trying to keep my distance from Charlotte. I asked Brenda to take care of Charlotte and I went for a check-up at a nearby clinic. I was prescribed with antibiotics and cough/flu syrup which really puts me to sleep. I woke up around 5.30pm and off I went downstairs to check on Charlotte. She was happily having her bath. She didn't want to get out from the water when I told her it's time to go to MaMa's house but she moved out quickly when I told her that she is going to blow another candle and sing the birthday song again at MaMa's house.

That made the 3rd candle blowing, cake cutting experience for Charlotte. She definitely gets the meaning of "birthday" by now. This time, she did a perfect candle blowing...



Out of 3 cakes (lychee, black forest, chocolate brownie), Charlotte didn't like any of it. There is one common thing on the cake that she loves though, the M&M chocolate! See, how she messy up the cake and herself...



If you asked her how old is she, she'll say: "two, old" and trying to sign 2 with her fingers. Sometimes, she got it right, but sometimes she just simply reply 5 and show all her 5 fingers (easy way out).

I told her that's all for this year, no more "happy birthday" and no more candle blowing until next year. She nod her head as usual, but I wonder if she really understands.

Officially 2

Time flies, my little princess is already 2 years old. How did we celebrate her birthday? It was not anything big or expensive thing we spent on Charlotte's birthday but it was a celebrated with a series of great programs and events.

Let's start with her 1st present, that was a couple of weeks back. It was a double sided art easel from Toys"R"Us that we bought for her. As I blogged about her drawing hobby earlier, Charlotte continues to show her interest in drawing (and started to "decorate" my house furniture too). One side of this easel is a black board and the other side is the white board. The easel set also comes with a pack of magnetic alphabets/numerical characters that you can placed it on the white board side of the easel. Our plan was to only let her open up the present on her birthday but I gave it to her a couple of weeks before her birthday and she has been happily drawing on the white board. I am keeping the chalks and didn't let her know that she could draw on the black board side. I am a little hesitant to let her use the chalks for now. She loves the art easel, and she loves to play the win-loose-or-draw game (well, we draw and she guess of course). It's also my secret weapon to distract her when she is cranky or throwing her tantrum sometimes. Of course, I need to be prepared to draw something that I have never drew it before and that will make her laugh but she wants it over and over again after that (sigh!).

Sunday (Oct 28th), MaMa and KongKong (my parents) bought Charlotte her birthday present to our house. Because they will be away (travel to Beijing) during Charlotte's birthday, they purposely made a trip to downtown and her this...

Charlotte loves her new Beetle, every time she will bring her doll together and pretend to go "kai kai" (LOL). This is also a new hot toy to the rest of the playgroup children, now they don't have to fight for the motorcycle anymore :)

Sunday (Nov 4th), I bought her a small birthday cake and did the candle blowing thingy with her playgroup friends. It was fun to celebrate children's birthday with many kids around. After that night, Charlotte repeats 2 sentences for the rest of the week: "friend friend, come, draw draw" and "blow, blow"...

Saturday morning (Nov 10th), we already planned to bring Charlotte for a new experience - feeding fishes. We took her to the Air Itam Dam after breakfast. We brought along bread and get ready to let her try the new activity. The water at the dam was very full as the result of the recent wet weather. Unfortunately, it was drizzling but we still proceed, with umbrella of course. Charlotte was all excited but she didn't really know what was going to happen. We threw the first piece bread into the water, and waited. There were no respond! Oh dear, where did the fishes gone? Then we threw a few more pieces, and this time we got a big splash from the water! We saw so many big fishes fighting for the food! Then only Charlotte knows what she'll get when the bread is thrown into the water. She wanted to try and so we let her. But the place we stood was quite far from the water, and the pieces of bread that Charlotte threw didn't get to the fish but all got stuck on the slope of grasses. She saw a big tortoise (trust me, really big one) swimming very slowly but getting closer to where we stood. Pat kept trying to throw the bread to the tortoise but it's reaction was so slow and the fishes ate the all bread before it managed to reach the food. Charlotte was very excited and keep shouting "tis, come!" (ha!). We had to end the feeding session real fast because the rain was getting heavier. We decided to bring Charlotte to where we used to stay the next morning.

Sunday morning (Nov 11th) - there is a lake in front of the apartment where we used to stay. The lake is full of fishes, tortoises and sometimes we see iguana too. We took Charlotte there on Sunday morning because we know there she can see the fishes at a real close distance. This time, I brought biscuits instead of bread. Biscuits are heavier and it's easier for Charlotte to throw a bit further to reach the fishes. We found a good spot, see how close we were from the fishes...Daddy had to hold her just in case she got carried away and stepped into the lake.

Last Sunday (Nov 11th), we invited PIL (Parents In Law) to our house for a small celebration. That was her 2nd candle blowing experience and she was already like a pro but still need a bit more practise on the candle blowing action. She clapped her hands during the birthday song, and you can really notice how happy she was. She knew that was especially for her.

The video was not captured to satisfaction, but that's the only memory what we got...

Did you notice that she actually clapped to the birthday song ryhtum correctly? (No? Watch again...)

After cake cutting, Charlotte was really in happy mood. She danced when her daddy played the Andrea Brocelli Live in Las Vegas music DVD. She danced happily by herself, in her beautiful dress that we got her from Gap Kids. That was so princess-like (bias? I know)

We got her another present - a basic play-doh set. It's just a 2 color play-doh set, with several cutting and molding tools and accessories. This is something different from her toy collection, happy birthday baby!

To be continue? You bet!

Little Artists In Action

The playgroup is getting more and more interesting and mommies are getting more creative at the playgroup activities. We had pool & bubbles 2 weeks back and last week we made a little artist session for the little ones.

We were fully equipped for this session. Some of us bought the paint apron for our kid, we have brushes, paint pallets and even made our own edible paints for the kids just to make sure that it is safe for them. It was full of fun and most of all it was very interesting to see our little prince and princess's creativity and preference during the session.

Getting Ready




I have been telling Charlotte that mommy is inviting friends to have a drawing session. She always nod her head and respond "friend friend, come, draw draw". Bryan and Wei Xuan too were very excited and well prepared for the session. I guess their mommies must be telling them the same prior to the session too :)

Wei Xuan was the most tidy little one. Her "work station" was the cleanest, including the paint pallet and brush and her master piece was the nicest among all.



Bryan was the most creative one. His master piece was full with paints and drawings. He even used up Ethan's paper since Ethan was more interested in Simba (ha!). Lucky Simba, I guess he will have more friends now :)





Charlotte on the other hand was the dirtiest. She had all her palms and fingers brushed with paints and her master piece was too abstract for us to be able to interpret :p Hin Lerk and mommy came not long after we started the session but he insisted to go play with the toys in the living room





It's just one week from Charlotte's 2nd birthday. I thought I could make an early celebration for Charlotte with her playgroup friends. So I went to buy another birthday cake (yes, I have ordered one for her actual birthday) in the afternoon. After we bath all of them, it was time for a little candle blowing session.

Charlotte is very familiar with this birthday song and candle blowing thingy as we have been showing her video clips that we took during other people's birthday. She can even sing along the birthday song (well, just a little bit here and there) too. It was also very fun because most of our playgroup children's birthday are around the same time. Some just had their 2nd birthday celebrations, so they were very happy to see that happen again. It was also a good practise and preview for those birthdays coming up soon. This makes all the candle blowing thingy so much more exciting!



It was an unplanned agenda, but I was overwhelmed to receive many birthday gifts from the playgroup. Thanks everyone!