ZY's first holiday!

We went to Malacca last Friday-Sunday!

And he was sleeping on me as we boarded the bus downstairs.. This was the first time I wrapped him up this way - he didn't seem to like it very much..



Both kids fell asleep on the way to Malacca. ZY even pooped! Immigration was a breeze even though we had to go through a counter instead of the automated gates cos of the kids.

Arrived at PoPo's place and set off immediately for lunch at a curry fish head place before returning to wait for check-in time.

Check out ZK in the bamboo chair that he was last in last year - cheeky face!



We were leaving for the hotel when he climbed onto the driver's seat when no one was looking!!

I can drive!



Oh, I woke up with hives for unknown reasons! Took an antihistamine and was drifting in and out of sleep in the morning before we set off. It got better for a short while before new patches of red appeared again. Once we checked in, I took another and got Y to watch over ZY while I napped.

Dinner was at some duck place. Poor Sito missed out on the food cos he was in Manila!

I had a pretty good sleep that night cos ZK was sleeping with Mum and Dad! I only had to wake two times to nurse ZY and did not have to be on high alert for ZK who might wake his brother. And ZY was very cute and small in the middle of the king bed. He slept much better than at home too!

The next morning, ZK came over before breakfast as they had an errand to run. Y and I brought the kids down for breakfast. Ah Yee joined us there so with more hands, I managed to bring ZK to choose some food cos he refused cereals. Then I realised that he just wanted the cornflakes, no milk! *.* But he didn't eat much anyway...

Decided to go for a foot massage while ZK was with his grandparents - seriously 偷懒, this mama!! But that turned out to be very good for the hives - I woke with almost no red patches but was covered in big ugly patches by breakfast time. So big, said ZK.. After the foot massage, they were mostly gone! I don't know if it was the hot foot bath before the massage or the massage itself, but I was so glad the hives were gone! They were so itchy!

Went back to the hotel to find ZK fast asleep on AhYe!



He has been driving around!

Woah, I can drive!



Lunch was at Second Ah Yee's place. There was a tea ceremony and a buffet lunch - oh ya, the purpose of this trip was to attend her second daughter's wedding :)

ZK on the swing with YeePo, looking lost...



ZY with TaiMa and BiaoJiu - ZY charmed TaiMa so much with his ready smiles! ^_^



Sito finally joined us! The older pair of Sito siblings on the swing they knew as children:



That's us! :) We have so few photos together these days...



Wanted to get foot massage but didn't manage to - it was popular! So we went back to the hotel where ZY decided to chat with Papa - love his cute sounds :)



All dressed up for the wedding dinner! Just missing my dear ZK...



There he is! So handsome I must kiss him!



This is the only one where ZK was smiling - this boy doesn't pose very well for the camera yet *.*



Managed to nurse ZY with a nursing cover. I had wanted to get a nice nursing dress and even asked SL to recommend nice nursing gear. But I found that this favourite dress was breastfeeding-friendly! Just pulled down the strap and bra under the cover! Saved at least $60 yeah! :p



ZK was seated across the table from me. Gave him some chicken cereal as he didn't want table food. Sighs, my big baby ah, when will you be less picky over your food??

Had to resort to the iPad to keep him happy *.*



ZY almost fell asleep when a glass was knocked over, sighs.. Took some more time before he finally dozed off - the handkerchief was stuck under :p So glad we brought the car seat along so we didn't have to carry him throughout the dinner.



The next morning after breakfast, we brought ZK for some waterplay!

He remembered what he did at the Jacob Ballas garden :)



So happy!



Around this time, another toddler in a big float floated towards ZK. ZK stretched out his hand in a "no" sign and said "not for you!" Wonder where he got that from!



Hi! :)



Wrapped up like a cute mummy :)



At that point, husband and wife ditched the toddler for foot massage! :p We came back later than expected but managed to check out in time to go for lunch, where ZK was cranky as usual. Y had to sling ZY while I had ZK on my lap. At some point, I slapped his hand and he went "I don't want Mama anymore!" in between sobs *.*

Happier back at Popo's place - he kissed Taima! :)



Love this look - he really looks like a big boy! And the legs look so long..



Finally on the bus home! Made ZY whack jigajung and after a while, he had a go at it himself! :)



Came back to a hazy Singapore... Sito disciplined ZK just before dinner as he refused to apologise to YeYe after hitting him. He eventually did when we left him at home with Y and walked down the corridor. But he remained cranky through dinner.. So tired when we all got home - I slept like a log in between feeds!

The routines of both kids got quite out of whack this trip. Had to make ZK nap twice so that he could last dinner. ZY napped very well cos he was in the sling but his bedtime was very delayed. Tried to tune back ZY's schedule on Monday by staying in but he didn't nap much and in the evening, fell asleep much later than ZK! Luckily he seemed to have fell back into routine today.

Training the toddler

Potty training

I'm happy to report that I gave ZK his second star this evening - for a full pee into the potty :)

He first peed into the potty on 2 September. He had his potty book with him and after he peed, we turned to the page with pee in the potty and said 一样 :) And after that, every time we prepare him for a shower, he would want to pee and actually pee into the potty! :) The quantity varies from a fifty-cent puddle to a full pee. Sometimes he doesn't have much pee but just wants to pee into the potty. We let him but I keep reminding him that if he doesn't have pee, he does not need to pee; no good to strain!

All those weekends of wetting underwear proved useful after all. For a few weekend mornings, I gave him his underwear and let him run about in that and a shirt. Every 10 or 15 minutes, I would ask him if he wanted to pee and he would say no, but eventually, he would go the next minute after saying "no"! I tried to make him stay in the living room as I didn't want pee on the bed or the laminate floor in the bedrooms. But a couple of weekends ago, he peed on the sofa! Luckily, it wasn't too much and our leather sofa is easy to clean.

Just this last Sunday, I was nursing ZY when he said he wanted to shhh shhh. Y ushered him to the potty and he had a full pee - underwear remained dry, yeah! I gave him his first star sticker :) I even let him choose the star!

Usually, we'll put on a diaper after the morning pee, be it in the underwear or in the potty. I'll see how he fares the next couple of weekends. If he's good, we'll go the whole day with underwear except during nap time. Then we'll try nap time when he doesn't flip all over the bed so that I can place a mat under him. Then it's night time! I'm excited :)

Oh wait, there's also pooping.. Well, he knows about poo poo but when he says "poo poo", it's already done. Or at most, being done *.* There was this one time last week when he let a little poop into the potty and right after, into the shower!!!! But other than that, no luck with pooping in the potty. Maybe I should also ask him if he wants to poo when he's in his underwear..

Brushing

I've also started him on a brushing schedule, well, sort of... Every morning - if I don't forget! - we'll bring him to the basin to brush his teeth. He likes to fill his cup and rinse his mouth - he can even copy my action of tilting my head back before spitting the water out!

He used to let me brush for him first before taking the brush himself, or letting me hold his hand to brush. But in recent days, he wants to brush by himself only, which isn't much brushing... And he dips the toothbrush into the water more than putting it into his mouth! He also likes to clean his toothbrush the way I do it, i.e. thumb rubbing bristles. But no toothpaste - he spat it out almost immediately the first couple of times even though he had asked for it himself.

Hope to get him to brush properly or at least, do more brushing than playing so that he will be less wet. Then I'll add on the evening brush after he's changed, cos sometimes he wants milk after his shower.

Feeding himself

He used to feed himself at dinner time at home. That was messy but he got his food.

Then he wanted to watch videos while eating. That slowed things down and he needed to be fed sometimes, but fine, he got his food.

Then - the sequence is a bit blurry here - we removed the high chair and let him sit on the adult chair. I also got fed up with him and videos so I removed the laptop. Trucks replaced the laptop.

At first, it was ok. Then he decided to not sit on the chair! He now runs between the dining table and his play around with his toys, or he grabs a clothes peg from the rack next to the dining table and tries it on me and the chair. I came out of the room just now to find Y chasing after him with his food!!

I really don't like to see that. Table manners are important. I want to train him to sit at the table to eat again. But I can't use the high chair as ZY will use it in three months' time, and it's high time ZK learns to sit on a proper chair. And now that I'm busy with ZY at dinner time, it's difficult for me to teach him. I want to try bringing out the laptop again but restricting it to DVDs only - Thomas and flashcards. I told him about Thomas just now at bedtime and he said "laptop". Yes, let's see what happens with that...

Sleep

So I started out with bunking in with the kids. Then I began to sneak back to my bed when I could. But at first, when ZK woke and I wasn't around, he cried bloody murder. I had to physically remove him to the furthest corner of the house - which isn't very far! - to calm him down so he wouldn't wake ZY. Sometimes, he would cry even when I was around, simply because I was lying down instead of sitting or something trivial. It was very irritating and it got super frustrating when ZY woke as well.

After a few such episodes, one day, during a particular bad bout of crying that I couldn't understand, I dumped him on the sofa and waited for him to calm down so that he could hear me. I told him there was no need to cry - he could talk already so just tell me what he wants! And I shall choose whether to lie down or sit cos Mama gets tired too! After a while, he repeated "no need to cry" so I latched on to that phrase.

Now, every evening before we settle for bed, I'll remind him to just go look for me if he wakes and I'm not around - no need to cry. One day, before I even said it, he told me "no need to cry" :)

Other than that, I'm still quite stuck in their room. ZY hasn't been sleeping very well lately but I'll leave that for another day... Sometimes, during Saturday nap time, ZK would tell me to go out although he would eventually ask me back in. So just now, I asked ZK if I could just go out while he was awake. He said "no" *.* Oh well, at least I tried!

ZK is my Spider-Man!

Because he gave me a super wet upside down kiss right on my lips this morning!!

He woke at 5.30 am and I was trying to lie in more. Somehow we got to about 6.15 am, and he went "milk time" for the umpteenth time. Fine, let's go, but first, "kiss kiss Mama", I said. Then a little thing came from behind my head and piak! Yup, it was no muack but piak *.* But so cute :)

Anyway, he's asleep now. Don't know what time he'll be up - he didn't have dinner at all. Wrote a note to the teachers to stop them feeding him after 5.30 pm; Y said he was having a biscuit at the end of the day.

Think he likes snacks, like me :( Asked me for mooncakes this morning..

Having mooncake on Tuesday morning..



Which he made on Monday! :)


Source: School

Long weekend!

It was very long because Friday was Teachers' Day* aka childcare centre closure day!

* So crappy that they have moved Teachers' Day and Children's Day from the first of the month to the first Friday of the month for administrative convenience!

We went to West Coast Park in the morning :)

ZK went really high in this safe swing!



He didn't like sand very much so Y had to carry him - I had ZY on me while he's too heavy for Mum to carry for prolonged periods. We were on the slide a little, on the balancing beam a little, but eventually he got tired and it got hot, so we adjourned to Macs!

吃...



He had almost the entire McChicken! Less mayo and vegetables of course... Next I'll have him try the fillet burger. There's a little cup of Milo for him too - he likes :)

And having fries with lots of ketchup - Sito's son indeed *.*



There were two middle-age men at the table next to ours. This ZK suddenly got friendly with one of them..

Uncle! Uncle! abcxyz fry abcxyz biscuit!

The uncle was very sporting and replied him too! I was busy with ZY so I didn't catch much but the scene was pretty fun :)

He was nodding off on the way home and we had to keep him awake for a shower before we let him nap!

ZY napped too - took a video of him falling asleep :)



We cabbed to Mother's place after the afternoon nap. Again, ZK got friendly with the cabbie.

ZK: Uncle, 开叮当! (He wanted to open an unopenable tab on his toy.)
Uncle: Uncle 不会开啦...
mf: ZK 今天这么 friendly! So kaypoh!
ZK: Kaypoh..

Uh-oh... :p

He spent most on his time at Mother's place with three Russian doll-styled boxes on the coffee table, opening them in turn, placing them in correctly, replacing the covers etc. I loved seeing how focused he was at his task, with no other distraction :) Even when Mother later brought out a small bag of my old toys, he was still going back to the boxes.

He sat at the table for perhaps two mouthfuls of rice and off he ran!! Why oh why can't he sit down properly to eat when at home?! He used to sit properly and feed himself :(

But so cute :)



When we got home, he said goodbye to the cabbie - another friendly move. Is the friendly era here? Sito was a very friendly kid so... :)

ZK got packed off to the centre on Saturday morning so that we got some peace - we're so bad! *.* - and ZY finally got a nice little nap! He didn't nap well the previous afternoon at Mother's place.

Sito was very tired so I left him to sleep in instead of dragging him out for lunch. I packed some fried rice while Y fetched ZK home. He fed himself a few mouthfuls - think he was hungry - and ran off again!!

ZK didn't want to go to his room for his nap so we nua-ed a bit in ours.

Love this shot of my boys!



Another one! With my imagined thoughts:

Sito: ZK is so cute <3 p="">ZK: What shall I do next to irk Mama?
ZY: Papa, I'm cute too!



Sito worked while everyone else took a nap. ZK woke first - he didn't cry but came right in to find me, just as I had been teaching him at night for the part week! :) So we chatted a little and when ZY woke for milk, we had a little fun:



And then more fun downstairs!

mf: Are you ready?
ZK: Yesss!



We headed for dinner at Star Vista, our usual Saturday haunt. This time, we had Yomenya Goemon. It wasn't very kid-friendly; no plastic bowl! So Sito sat next to ZK to manage him as I had ZY in my arms, as usual.

ZK was very cute. After finishing his appetisers (biscuits!), he kept saying "I want 面！吃面！" while waiting for our orders to arrive. He also played a little game with me:

ZK: Where d'spoon? (hiding it under the table)
Mama: 汤匙在哪里？我不知道⋯⋯铠铠告诉我！
ZK: There! (show spoon!)

:)

When the spaghetti came, I prepared his portion with meat and mushrooms as he watched on. Then he ate everything! I even saw him picking out the meat to eat! Has the era of meat arrived, finally??

The auntie at the table next to ours was impressed - she asked for his age, said he was so cute asking for 面 and praised him for feeding himself :) I was very proud :) I only wished he would feed himself with such gusto at home as well but I guess I shouldn't be too greedy after all :)

ZK also had some chocolate cake and ice cream, which came as part of the set. And what happened the next morning probably confirmed my suspicion from earlier chocolate delights - that ZK has "chocolate poop", i.e. poop that looks like chocolate! *.*

We spent most of Sunday at Mum's place. I took ZY home to settle down while Sito took ZK to carry his lantern as it is Mooncake Festival today! But ZK wasn't interested - oh well!

So there, that's one long weekend - super tiring but very fun and cute because of our little boys :)

Happening weekend for ZK! And a language explosion?

Last Friday was school excursion day! I spent the week prepping him - or rather, bribing him with it.

mf: 你要坐 bus 去 excursion 吗？
ZK: 要⋯⋯
mf: 那你晚上要好好睡觉才有精神去 excursion 玩好不好？
ZK: 好⋯⋯

All buckled up in the big big bus! Time to dig nose...!



Selfie - just the two of us :) And ZK was actually smiling for the camera!



He then took over and took a series of shots while I posed :p



It took us a long time to get to the Navy Museum, which meant some difficulty in keeping ZK in his seat. Luckily, there were a lot of excavators and trucks along the way to keep his mind occupied, especially when we were very near the museum at Tanah Merah. And I created some "magic" - I secretly hid raisins in my palm, one by one, for him to discover :p

It took us an hour or so to get to the museum, which turned out to be totally unsuitable for his age group. I already suspected it earlier but I was led astray by the instructions to bring socks along - I thought there was going to be a play area. Nah! And I think there was some miscomm - our guide was the only one not in uniform and he kept calling us the "parents group" when we were only parents accompanying the playgroup. Different PGs... So he went on about some chim stuff to a small audience of toddlers in parents' arms. My toddler? He had run off to somewhere long ago!!

The picture that makes ZK go "wooooah" every time we review the excursion pictures :)



I'm a desktop soldier!



ZK seems to know he's going to take up arms some day... The other day, he insisted on carrying our big umbrella up the stairs. When I told him to hold the middle so that he could bring it up more easily, he somehow ended up carrying it in both hands like a rifle!

Some of his classmates! He could name half of them when we reviewed the pictures :)



After a morning of running about, he dozed off on my lap in the bus after finishing my mini box of raisins...



Some crying ensued in the centre cos I was leaving. This time, lunch didn't entice him too much probably cos of the three wassants he had at tea.. Three!!! I napped with ZY that afternoon, so tired...

The next day, we went to the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden. It was quite a walk from the MRT station but we got there just in time to meet two mummy friends from the July 2012 forum group and YX!

ZK looked on while A posed nicely for the camera. ZK ah, when will you pose nicely and consistently? :)



We only managed to play at the water play area. It was right behind the entrance and upon seeing that, well, ZK wasn't going anywhere else!

When we first looked at this video together, ZK laughed at the part where he screamed and ran :) (Um, forgive the squealing mama in the background...)



He made the water go high up! (He also made a drinking fountain out of it! Luckily he already knows about 漱口...)



After that, we went for dinner at Bar Bar Black Sheep at Cluny Court, as our first choice Relish was full. We ordered a kid's portion of bolognese spaghetti for him and he ate it! All not but it was a good start that he ate the meat on his own :) He also took my crinkly fries. Best of all, he sat through most of dinner! Though he was super cranky after that and even rolled on the ground downstairs, yucks.. Boys! *roll eyes*

That was the first happening weekend for ZK since ZY arrived. We stayed at home or Sito took him to the playground for the longest time. Since last weekend, we tried to break up the monotony a bit, by reviewing his school work! He tore out the vehicles and wheels from his latest works *.* Then I dumped all but some of his/my favourites - running out of space to keep.



Random: poop face :p



Also brought out the rest of his mega blocs - he has had only four pieces for the longest time hoho! And he was such a good boy to help us put everything back into the bag at the end. He even dismantled the tower Papa built before keeping them - a bit OCD like us :p



He woke with super cute bed hair one morning - not too clear here unfortunately.. His hair became more tame in recent weeks, mostly staying down instead of standing up.



A very happy shower time! Censored, of course! And with nice hair that stayed down..



But we shaved his head last Sunday - too hot! And he refused the hairdryer!

That's us after a shower and a nap at Mum's place - my little botak boy!



Mum got him slippers! He was walking around carefully, very cute :) Need more practice before we hit the road!



I also bought him a pair of crocs which he wore - slowly :) - to school today as his sandals are falling apart. Thought I'd change to crocs to protect his toes - he came home with scrapped toes a couple of weeks ago, my clumsy boy..



In the past couple of weeks, he was able to sing more songs and more clearly. One day at dinner, he tilted his bowl and went "tip me over and pour me out!" Luckily I stopped him from totally turning the bowl over!

He has also sprout some interesting and funny things:

1) He was rolling around in bed in the middle of the night.. I was lying down, still.

ZK: Mama..
mf: *silence*
ZK: Mama, are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?

I was so surprised! I ignored him as I was (supposed to be) sleeping :p

2) One evening at bedtime.

mf: Are you sleeping?
ZK: Yes!

Haha!

3) Last Sunday at Mum's place, we asked him to go find AhYe in the bedroom and on his way in..

ZK: YeYe, are you sleeping?

Yup, his new pet question :p

4) Last Saturday, we had difficult getting his pants down cos he was all sweaty.

ZK: I grow fat!

We had such a good laugh!

5) I changed ZY's poopy diaper and went into the room while ZK was playing in the living room. I came out again when ZY pooped again..

mf: 弟弟又 poo poo 了！
ZK: Again.. Again poo poo!

My bilingual child! :) Although he has been sprouting mainly English... I shall slowly make him reply to me in Mandarin!

6) This takes the cake - last night, I think he said "I love you" :)

ZY is two months old!

Yup, my littler baby turned two months last week :)

There has been ups and downs, with the downs mostly to do with bedtime; the initial fussing at the boobs is much less noticeable now.

There were also a few scares/worries. First, the BCG site. I found a whitehead on it in mid August. I squeezed it lightly and green pus came out! I swear, it was a light squeeze *.* At the next change, I found some blood on the diaper around the BCG site. It got me worried and made me google like mad, finding nothing conclusive. Some days later, I happened to flip through his health booklet and found information on this - it didn't explicitly say that there could be pus but it did mention something to the effect that such an occurrence is nothing to worry about. Lesson learnt - read the health booklet! And interestingly, he had some fussy sleep episodes before that that disappeared after the pus came out, hmmm...

Second, the lip tie. So after the PD and LC, we sought the advice of a PD surgeon. He thought there was no need to cut the lip tie as ZY could nurse, and quite well. As for dental concerns, he thought we should just monitor and only do something if necessary later because the part of the frenulum that could affect his two front teeth would have to be cut off from the gums under GA. Scary... Ok, we'll monitor...

So what has ZY been up to in the past two weeks? :)

Being abandoned at the sofa by Papa! Hoho! Sito decided to place him there one day cos we remember doing that with ZK! Super cute look *swoon*



ZY has better head control than ZK - his head was quite steady on the net thing at Mum's place. The next time he got on this, he pooped through the net *.*



Um, and ZK decided to have his turn when ZY wasn't on it! Too small for you, my dear... So he took to filling it with toys and wheeling it around the house yesterday!



ZY had his first haircut! It's for his name stamp. The person who cut his hair was the same as the one who cut ZK's hair two years back!



Tummy time! Perhaps because he has better head control, he is less opposed to the idea of tummy time compared to ZK. But he drools a lot in this position! And ZK always says "didi eat!" when he sees this picture ^.^



ZY's burp look - I like!



Baby cleavage!



You can see some yellowish skin on his eyebrows and between them - yup, cradle cap, but less serious than ZK's at least for now. I used olive oil on it some time ago but since it is quite thin, I thought I'd let it drop by itself for a while.

Some nights, ZY doesn't sleep before ZK comes in. So the light stays on and the toy comes in with the brother, and the younger one stays awake!



ZY is much more responsive now. If I look at him, he'll smile back. He's such a happy baby! :)