20 months / 4 years

oops, it's been too long.
wanted to update on n's word bank which quite suddenly grew by leaps and bounds. not too sure if it can be fully attributed to start childcare in september, or that it was just time that he started making himself understood. he can now call everyone in the family, including grandparents on both sides. he also can count from 1 to 12 (or more, can't really be sure) and can recognise the numbers. he can also make out more alphabets than just "A" now ... B, C, D, E, X, O thanks to some signboards and playground equipment that he comes into contact with regularly. he knows poo poo goes into the potty but still refuses to use it. "uh oh wet wet" is probably his longest sentence to date. no more, mum mum, dirty, smelly, goodnight, nen-nen, star, circle, square, jump, hop, swish, up, pop, bang, bye bye, (ba)nana, (ele)phant, bubble, throw, hot, car, broom-broom, train, bombomchi are all words he can say in context. he literally went from zero to hero. haha.
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at the other end, my mini adult h has started piano lessons since september, which means having to practice with her every night before the bedtime routine can start. given that i normally reach home at 8 and n sleeps around 8.30-8.45 nowadays, it means that it is pretty difficult for me to put her to sleep by 10. the good thing is that she enjoys playing the piano and is happy to sit down to practice every night. sometimes she even tinkers on it herself in the morning when she gets up and also when she gets back from childcare.
she is still as enthusiastic about ballet as ever.
am now trying to interest her in learning to read. she can read a couple of words here and there, but not extensive nor fast enough yet. once she's able to, there'll be so many storybook worlds she can explore on her own!

15 months / 27 months

oh no where has time gone?

n is well into toddlerhood now. more talking walking and loud complaints are part of the package. he is really nice to have around, because HUGGLES! never got much of an opportunity to huggle with h since she was always on the move. but with n, i definitely get more huggle time because he is so accommodating. haha.
he is still a champion eater with champion appetite. but he only eats good and tasty food. no more porridge, no mushy stuff. he only eats adult food. and lots of bread. and yoghurt.
he suddenly started talking more recently - baaa, ba (eight in Chinese with the correct intonation which he also recognises), beba (peppa pig), A (which he also recognises), star (which he recognises), throw away (we suspect missing keys and our TV control panel have all been thrown away by zealous him), mama (only when whining), nen nen (milk), bye, cheh cheh.
he also loves clapping. clapping for himself when he has done something clever, clapping for fun ...
and he loves music and songs and will always dance along and turn around.

h is fast approaching her 4th birthday. she's a joy to everyone around her. still the Indian chief and loudest girl in class. she's mature and can be reasoned with, and can be very gracious when it comes to sharing her toys. so proud of her and very lucky to have her as a daughter.

11 months - sand

when h had her first encounter with sand at the sembawang park around the time she was 1, she refused to put her feet down and then later refused to walk when standing on sand. still remember how she stood there "complaining".

this time round with n was totally different. while he did notice the different texture and how his feet would sink into the sand, he more or less took to it like a fish to water. think he enjoyed the feeling of sand grains slipping through his fingers as he kept on doing it. no issues with crawling everywhere in the sand too. the only irritating thing with sand is that it gets stuck to sticky faces and hands ... and he hasn't learnt to keep his hands away from his eyes. was half scared he would rub a grain of sand into his eyes during the 3 times we were at some kind of sand playground over the weekend. 

9 months - words

or rather sounds that he likes to say, in descending order of frequency:

1. cheh cheh cheh (calling his sister). i don't recall h saying this until much later, so he must really love his sister. that or there wasn't a need for h to use this much since she doesn't have a big sister around the house 

2. where.

3. bear. starting to see a pattern here ....

4. pa pa pa.

5. ma / mum. only when asking for food or complaining. never on demand. sigh.

he also knows to look out for fans, trains, birds and the 3 bears ... 

staycations

we've had two staycations since i went back to work and they have been helpful breaks for me short of an overseas trip. just 2-3 days away from the work laptop and all the random cleaning and washing up that somehow needs to be done on a daily basis is enough to make me feel like i can face another 2-3 months of work/family juggling. 

the reason for the pan pacific stay was my mum's 60th birthday celebration. there was a dinner planned and we wanted to be able to put baby n to bed close to his usual bedtime and that would be impossible given where we live. so we bundled parents and overseas relatives off to a staycation. had wanted to splurge on a ritz carlton stay but the rooms (harbour studio and city suite rooms) at pan pacific were much bigger for a cheaper price so we chose the latter. 

it was great having the malls literally at our doorstep and to be in aircon 24-7. h also got to splash around in the pool while both kids got to enjoy the long soaks in the bathtub.

as we weren't planning to take long leave nor travel over the school holiday period, but i still had some days of leave to clear (yes, even after taking no pay - yay for childcare leave and my 28 day leave entitlement), decided to tie a staycation with a cousin's wedding dinner so that (again) we didn't have to make a long car trips to and fro town on Christmas Eve.

chose to stay at hotel fort canning since it would be close enough to the wedding venue and we could plan visits to the nearby national museum and central fire station. fort canning greenery was also a draw, together with the pictures of the hotel pools (two!).

for this staycation we only brought h and that meant we had more flexibility to do stuff and to nap while she napped in the afternoon :D shiok! would also have dreaded having to tiptoe around a sleeping n if we had him around in the rather small hotel room.

9 months - mobile!

baby n finally got his act together and went from being super lazy at rolling around to a full-blown moving baby. it started out with me finding him in all sorts of positions in the baby cot each morning, and then a short while later he was crawling! then he started sitting up on his own a few days later. what a change! 

thankfully he is usually content to keep to where his toys are and will only crawl about more when he is trying to look for us. his bolsters are also very good bait for crawling as he LOVES them.

he has also gotten slightly wary of strangers and even my parents if he doesn't see them for more than a week. if i am carrying him he will usually turn away from the person and then put his head in the nook my neck and try to snuggle up. it is quite cute.

40 months - jabs

brought h to the polyclinic last week to get her much delayed shots and she was such a trooper! was quite apprehensive at first that she would be freaked out when she got to the polyclinic and be difficult to handle, but perhaps thanks to all the mental prep that went on in the days before the actual visit, she actually seemed to look forward to the experience and was super cooperative all the way. bonus - she didn't cry for both jabs!