Gave Kate a “honey joy” for her little car trip to the childcare centre. She was happy I was happy.

I turned on the ignition and was on my merry way listening to the radio while driving towards the childcare centre.

I must have been thinking of something plus Kate was really quiet in the back, that I completely missed the turn into her childcare centre and was well on the route to work before I sensed that something was not quite right. I looked in the mirror and I saw Kate smiling at me .. oh no … I was bringing her to work with me … LOL

Oh my … silly ol me … no, I did not bring her to work. Did a u-turn and sent her to childcare .. hee

yes yes laugh at me .. these things do happen you know

Yeah, Good is finally thumbs up instead of index finger up .. hee

Yeye and Nainai called last night and Kate “chatted” with them for several minutes. Most of it consisted hello, yeye and nainai (at the top of her voice). Several yahs and nodding of head and then just blabbering .. haha

Praise the Lord, Kate is finally sleeping through the night in her cot. She still protests when I leave the room but cries for less than a minute.

Have to wake up very early so Little Princess has extra time to potter around before getting ready to leave the house. Can’t leave 30mins to get ready and out the house .. oh no .. it will be met with cries, tantrums, kicking, screaming … it is so true what they say about getting your kids dressed … haha

How times have changed … it is no longer the parent but the child that picks out a DVD, lets you know she wants to watch it, opens the cover, takes the CD out and puts it into the DVD player .. and then mummy can turn it on .. won’t be long before she learns which buttons to push .. hmmz .. I might hold off teaching her that .. haha

Just remembered some of the things Kate have been doing recently

1,2,3,4,6 oR 5,6,7

Last evening, Kate started counting her fingers. She would hold up her fingers and go “1, is 2, is 3,4, 6″. We tried to get her to say 1 to 5 and away she would go 1 to 6 (minus the 5). Interestingly though, she would say “5 to 7. Cute right? Then she did this super cute “1,2,3″ with corresponding finger action and in an incredibly cute voice. Caught both Ken and I by surprise .. hee

The Letter “i”

Is it a coincidence that she picked out the Alphabet “i” from the fridge (Leapfrog educational toy) or did she really recognise it? Whatever it was, we were amazed and so very proud : )

Its mine ….. Kate’s … Kate does this .. Kate does that

Everything is Kate’s and everything is mine Kate says. Kate pick up. Kate eat. Kate sleep. Kate wear …..

Thank you Kate for a beautiful Thursday. I have enjoyed spending the day with you : )

- You slept through the night in your cot. Well done baby!
- You slept until almost 10am which gave Mummy time to clean the house in the morning. Thank you sooo much.
- You woke up with a smile on your face, washed up with little fuss and headed downstairs for brekkie.
- We tried on the “Lady Bug” costume and ooh you looked sooo adorable. We shall wear it this Sunday after Mummy has made some adjustments on it for a better fit. If only you would let me take some pictures of you while you were in it.
- You had your bottle while watching The Wiggles. We need to get you more of their DVDs.
- While you were watching The Wiggles, mummy did more housework, checked her emails, did the laundry, dishes, ec
- You finished watching your dvd and wanted mummy to carry but mummy had to hang the laundry. Kate offered to take the pegs out for mummy. Well done Kate!
- You asked for water and after getting bored from drinking from the cup, decided to pour it in the backyard. Next time pour on soil instead of floor ok? Thatway you are watering the plants. Cheekly lil you dipped one leg of your pajama pants into the cup of water. Aiyoh ..
- We had lunch and you kept asking for more rice and egg even though your bowl was full of them. Oh well, at least you at your lunch.
- Blueberries time. You cal them blue cherries .. hee .. so cute.
- More water. This time you decided that teddy’s feet needed a bath. Too late by the time I saw you trying to dip it in. You had already done it before, I stopped the 2nd round .. haha. You then decided to wash your face, neck and hair with the remaining water. Ok, you are all clean again.
- Mummy went to the toilet. Kate also wanted to go to the toilet. So, mummy took off your diapers and popped you on the toilet bowl. No wee no poo. Just familiarising you with the toilet. Hmmz .. seems like you might be ready to be toilet-trained. Ok, we might go to ToysRus and get the toilet trainer.
- Its time for your afternoon nap sweetie. We went upstairs and you did not want to get into the cot and mummy figured she would relax the rules since you are already sleeping through in the cot at night time. So, on the bed you went, drank some water, chatted with me. I requested you to pat pat me (actually I needed a massage on my back) and you did a wonderful job Kate of “pounding” my back. I would request with a “more and please” and here comes a-pounding again. Nice.
- Then it was Kate’s turn to request mummy pat her to sleep. Fair enough. So now Kate is having her afternoon snooze.

Mummy has time for a cup of tea : )

is hard work … all who have parented toddlers, give yourselves a standing ovation!

Kate is growing at such an exponential rate and there are so many updates so I shall try to categorise them for you. Enjoy!

Bath-time / Changing Time
Whenever the tub of moisturizer emerges from the change basket, Kate would be all ready to dive her index finger in there and scoop out a huge dob of moisturizer. I used to have to struggle with her. On good days, she was pick some off my finger and moisturize my legs. On bad days, she would insist on sticking her finger in the tub and throwing a tantrum when I said NO. Well, I tried something new and it has been working so far. Just before I start lathering the moisturizer on her, I would ask her to get her hands ready by rubbing them together, and when I have placed some moisturizer on her, I will engage her help in lathering it all over.  She loves it and accepts it when its done and no more tantees. Whee.

I must be ready for you
Kate appreciates you telling her in advance what you will be doing. Eg) Let her know the sequence of event. Dinner, walk in the garden, remove shoes, take a bath. Mummy: “Kate, we are now going upstairs to bathe ok”
Kate: “Yes”
Result: no resistance. All go upstairs happily

A mistake I made yesterday evening. Kate was on her way up the stairs when she changed her mind and decided to head back down. I lost my patience and just scooped her up in my arms and carried her up the stairs. BIG MISTAKE. I spent the next hour struggling to bath and change her. She was upset with me, I was upset with her. No good.

Moral of the story: try as much as possible to let Kate know what you will be doing. (Eg) putting her on her booster seat, changing her diaper, etc. She likes to feel empowered and as much as possible, allow her to do it on her own. If she wants to wear her socks on her own, let her. She will eventually ask for your help after struggling with it for while. She loves it when she is able to remove her pants or her top without much help. Applaud her effort and encourage her. These are what I need to constantly remind myself especially on occasions when I just wanna jump in and do it all for her because we are running late.

Monkey See, Monkey Do
Kate was eating a banana and her mummy was happily looking at her eat until Kate decided to peel off the skin, hence dropping the banana on the ground and then proceeding to wipe her hands on the couch. Yuck! Yes, that was my reaction coupled with a high pitched “Aaargh” and stamping my feet in frustration. Ye Ye said ” You should not have done that. Wait she follow ah”. Yes, you guessed it, “Argh” ensued from Ms Kate’s lips shortly after. Aiyoh aiyoh

We adults unconsciously say “Aiyah” when we are picking up something heavy. Erm, Kate says “aiyah” occasionally when she is picking things up too. There is just something so funny about hearing “aiyah” from a little child. LOL

New Words
bibak = put it back
dog = doggie (does not say dog anymore)
milk = gnocchi (no more nilk)
daddy’s pillow
bida = spider

Kate and I were resting after dinner and playing with Piglet. Just like how Mom used to play with me. Piglet waves, nods, shakes its head, kicks, etc. We moved on to me brushing Piglet’ s teeth, cleaning its tongue, washing its face, bathing it, changing its nappy, feeding it milk, etc. Kate got really excited and went to her change basket and pulled out a diaper asking me to change Piglet .. so cute .. then she pulled out some face washers and started imitating me in cleaning its teeth and wiping its face. Sooo motherly .. haha

Then, she decided to take my water bottle, pretending it is a milk bottle and started feeding Piglet. After that, she cradled it in her arms as if rocking it to sleep … finally, she decided to feed it the rest of her apple before she went upstairs for her bath.

My baby is growing up so quickly.

Ooh .. if only I could load a video on this blog … anyways … hope this little description can whet your appetite until you see Kate ..

This was after dinner and bath and Kate was sitting next to her Yeye. All of a sudden, I heard her babbling and then laughing out loud, together with her Yeye and Daddy. This happened several times and when I went closer she was actually babbling as though she was talking. Know what I mean? With actions and expressions and sentences except that you can’t understand what she is saying. It was non-stop .. and there were instances where she babbled so much she had to take a deep breath before continuing .. haha … so cute

Earlier on in the day, we had lunch with Yeye at Glen and stopped by to have a coffee at one of the cafes while waiting for Nainai (she had lunch with some friends nearby). Yeye had a long black, Mummy had a de-caf latte and Kate had a shortbread biscuit. After a while, Kate started getting restless so we decided to let her run around .. heaps of space near us. Yeye encouraged her to go and look at flowers at a flowerbar neraby and Kate wouldn’t go more than a couple of feet away before running back to us. Just wanted assurance that it was ok. Once, she got that assurance from me bringing her there, oh, there is no bringing her back. She explored that area and decided to help herself to the little ballons that were placed in buckets around the flower bar. Aiyah, had to keep away from them. We should have thought of that before encouraging her to run around .. haha .. anyways, managed to distract her with other shops … hee

Mummy decided to bring Kate along with her while she went to the post office. While on the way there, we bumped into Granduncle Paul and Grandaunt Julie, and they just bought a gift for Kate a couple of minutes ago. A cute lil giraffe named “Godwin”. She hugged it straightaway, made them so happy.

When back at home and in her room, Kate went towards this hanging number chart at the side of her cot and pointed to a picture of 2 giraffes and pointed at Godwin the giraffe and said “G-Rah” … so clever : )

New words:

zai jian (Goodbye in Mandarin)
chao chao (smelly in dialect) –> usually says this when we are changing her after she has done a massive poo
yeah (nods her head in accompaniment)
yellow
trying to say ORANGE

learning how to sign I LOVE YOU (points to eye for I, hugs herself for LOVE, and just smiles at you for YOU)
some actions to the smidederinkidoo song
some actions to the ping pong, rollkatingting, sally sally lom jump pass game
loves teochew lullabyes .. mummy can only remember bits and pieces of one “ong ong ong, ong ging gong ….” Kate can say “long long yi” … LOL

starting to move her shoulders a lot more when she is dancing

still not too fond of some toys that make noises … she literally backs away from them. I tried putting her on a pony at ToysRus and when the pony started making little noises and moved, she wanted to get down. We’ve noticed that she tends to back away first when something unfamilier comes on (like a toy that speaks, or a water fountain that got turned on suddenly, carousels that speak rather than play soothing and child-like music). Once she has figured out what it is, and gotten reaffirmation from her caregivers that it is ok to check it out, she goes towards it cautiously and is fascinated by it. Intelligent right?

She is copying at an alarming rate. One day, Yeye noticed her spinning her pen like I do. I did not realise I do that until they pointed it out to me through Kate .. what a revelation .. haha. When we were at a friend’s place for dinner, she saw a 3 year old push a chair against the shelve to take something, she did it a couple of minutes later. Saw her daddy climb onto the table to adjust the clock, she climbed up the coffee table too. Thank you Yeye and Nainai for helping to keep an eye on her.

Kate’s got a very powerful voice for a little girl. Her grandparents took her to the carousel while Ken and I were finishing our drinks at the cafe. We could still hear her calling Daddy and Mummy several feet away … sooo cute. In the supermarket, I thought I heard Kate’s voice calling us and before I could turn around, there she was running towards us with her Yeye chasing her from behind. What an active little girl we have : P

It takes a lot of resolve not to go into her room to “rescue” her when she wakes up in the middle of the night. The other night, she started off by crying softly and then louder when no one went into her room. A couple of minutes later, she changed tactic. Started calling “Mummy Mummy Mummy”. I buried myself deeper into my covers to resist the urge to go and pick her up and start the whole routine of patting her to sleep for another hour again. Then she stopped and I thought to myself, whew .. finally gave up and fell asleep. Was I wrong. She started calling “Yeye Yeye Yeye” and then “Naiani Nainai Nainai”. I had my fingers and toes crossed that her grandparents will not go into her room to pick her up. Thank goodness they did not and she fell asleep after 15 minutes. Whew!!!!! Survival skills at such a young age .. amazing.

okies she is well and truly sleeping. Going to transfer her into the cot. Goodnight all

loves sitting on the carousel … thank you yeye and nainai …

Well, since I could not do it, I shall attempt to capture it in words : )

It has been a long morning for Kate and I. Woke up reasonably early, she spent some time with her grandparents before they headed to the gym. I did some housework and research on an upcoming trip. By noon, both of us were tired but you know who refuses to nap. So, I prepared a quick lunch and because I was tired and lazy, kinda just wanted to quickly feed her and get her to bed. So, instead of doing the usual routine of sitting on the high chair and giving her the bowl and utensils and let her feed herself, I decided to just get her to sit on the kitchen floor and feed her instead. Was it a good idea? Dunno ..

Kate insisted on wanting to hold the bowl so she could feed herself. So, I placed the bowl on the floor and she was happy to eat from the bowl for a little while. Then, she got bored and wanted to walk around with the bowl. Its not too much of a problem coz silly mummy cooked the porridge too long so it was quite gluggy and wun fall out. By the way, I decided to have a quick lunch myself so I was leaning against the refrigerator with my bowl of porridge. Our friend came and sat down next to me and ate from her bowl. So cute … mother and daughter sitting on the floor and eating porridge out of their bowl when there is a perfectly fine dining table with chairs a couple of feet away .. LOL