Kids Kampung

Posing with ducks.

Looking out the window of the mini kampung hut.

Enjoying herself in the mini kampung hut.

Yesterday we brought Royal Highness to Pasir Ris Farmway 1, Aqua Fauna Centre to visit the Kids Kampung. The place is designed for kids to experience the Kampung way of fun with activities like longkang fishing, feeding of fishes, ducks, chickens, goose, rabbits, tortoises and birds.

Unfortunately the weather was too warm for Royal Highness. She started to fuss after 15 mins as she started feeling uncomfortable in the hot weather. As a result, she refused to walk about and insisted on being carried. The only animals that caught her interest were the ducks as she kept saying "duck".

Overall I would rate the place only 5/10. The place is actually quite small and we had to pay $1 per head to get into the "Feeding Zone" where we each got 1 pack of feed. The animals were all caged up so there is no chance for kids to get up-close interaction. If the kids are older then at least they can try longkang fishing at $4 but for toddlers, there really isn't much activity for them except feeding fishes.

The next place on our list to visit will be the new Kids Rainforest at the zoo. Hopefully it will be a much better place for Royal Highness to see and touch animals.

Grow, grow, grow

The last time Royal Highness had her vaccination was when shes 6 months old. She was due for her last dose of prevenar at 12 months, followed by chicken pox at 13 months, MMR at 15 months and lastly booster at 18 months. We had been procastinating her 12 months jab as she was falling ill every other week since her HFMD episode which happened just 1 week before her 1 year old birthday.

Finally, we took her to the pd clinic for her long overdue prevenar on christmas eve. Poor girl, had to suffer a jab in her left thigh early in the morning on christmas eve. But it was the only day I could make an appointment for and definitely do not want to delay it any further. It so happens that on 24 Dec, Royal Highness also turns 15 months! What a way to celebrate huh? But don't worry, Royal Highness is very hardy...she cried for only 1 or 2 mins after the jab. We made sure to make it up to her by offering her biscuits and a breastfeeding "buffet"afterwards.

So Royal Highness is now 15 months and 2 days old, she now weighs 11kg and is 80cm tall.

New Stroller

Finally upgraded Royal Highness from her combi pram to a new stroller after months of deliberation and comparison. Don't get me wrong, we didn't spend a bomb on the new stroller (although I wouldn't mind if I had the money) as we just paid below $200 for this new one. I just wanted a more roomy and sturdy stroller that can see Royal Highness through the next few years.

We loved her combi pram lots as it was super lightweight with one-hand folding mechanism and we bought it when I was in my 2nd trimester during BHG sale at below market price. It has served us very well for the last 14 months. When Royal Highness started growing and growing, we found the pram space getting tighter and tighter. Apparently combi being a jap brand is designed for asian babies who are thought to be smaller-sized but Royal Highness happens to be on the bigger side with mum & dad. Also the lightweight feature meant that the wheels are much smaller and we could feel the frame starting to "protest" at the weight of our growing baby.

Thus I started on a new stroller hunt a few months back. Couldn't bear to part with more money despite good reviews & recommendations for popular models like maclaren or high-end bugaboo bees... Finally found this at Mothercare. A new model with similar features to maclaren but a more budget version. So far have tested it 3 times and would give my thumbs up for its performance!

Royal Highness is also happy with her new seat as she can now stretch out her legs on long road trips.

My over active girl

Didn't realise its been 2 weeks since my last post. I had been busy in the office rushing to complete the planning for 2009 and at the same time I attended 2 weddings in 1 week! Theres lots to update on Royal Highness as well, this girl is so active that I get tired just from watching her...

We like to bring her to the playground after dinner on evenings when it seems unlikely she'll fall into dreamland early. The idea is to tire her out by letting her use up her tonnes of energy. This usually work very well as she gets so hyped up at the playground that by the time she went home, she'll K.O after her bath. Heres a video of her at the playground.

Then one saturday while we were busy doing housechores, Royal Highness did this...

There are more outrageous stuns she had tried but unfortunately I was not in time to capture them. Daddy made the prediction that she'll fall and knock off one of her tiny teeth soon if she keeps up with her hyper-activeness. By the way shes starting to run, so I guess this prediction may really come true!

What an amazing brain you have!

Almost everyday, Royal Highness will suprise us with her developments. Just like a few posts ago, where I uploaded a video of her trying to open the gate. This morning, she did something which I never expected her to be capable of at this age. Once again, she showed me how amazingly God has created the human brain.

What happened this morning was that I was getting ready for work as usual and Royal Highness started fiddling with my makeup pouch and found my hairclip. She took the hairclip in one hand, the pouch in the other and walked out of my room. Shortly after I was ready to leave the house for work and was expecting to see my pouch and hairclip lying on the living room floor. But I only saw my pouch on the floor near my bedroom door and Royal Highness was flipping her story book in another corner. Immediately I said: "Baby where did you take mummy's clip to? Can you find the clip and give it to mummy?"

I was not expecting any respond from her at all but she stood up and started pointing in the direction of our 2nd bedroom. I was excited and thought to myself, did she really understood what I just said? So I said again: "Where is it? Can you go and bring it to mummy?" This time, Royal Highness turned around and walked into the 2nd bedroom. She then emerged holding out her hand which held the hairclip and walked back towards me!

Oh my God! She is so clever! I cannot believe that a 14 month old can remember where exactly she had left an object and is able to retrieve the object. This tiny brain of hers is just simply amazing! I am so proud of her.

8 milk teeth

This video was taken this afternoon at mum-in-law's place. Royal Highness is enjoying munching on her favourite fruit - apple. Although, apple may not really be her favourite fruit since she does not get to eat many types of fruits as we always offer her apples. No particular reasons, just that apples are the commonest fruit we find at home and at both grandma's house. I guess its also got to do with the fact that the only fruit Royal Highness can identify and say is "apple". So naturally, we all think she must love apple.

Anyway, back to the subject...teeth. Royal Highness only started sprouting her first 2 milk teeth when she was 8 months old. I believe she is considered late in her teething as most of her peers already had at least 4 teeth when they reached 8 months old. Due to her late teething, I have always been careful in the type of food we give her for fear she is unable to bite or chew them. Surprisingly, she has been able to handle most of her solids well including biscuits. By the time she was 12months, she was eating rice, meat and some chunks of apple with only 4 teeth (2 front & 2 bottom).

Now armed with 8 tiny teeth, she can sink her teeth into a full-sized apple on her own at last! I am so excited to see more pearlies sprouting. But that also means its time to get serious with brushing. Not forgetting more pain when she decides to give me a bite when breastfeeding her too! Ouch!

Little Adult

Tiny Stroller for the Little Adult

Royal Highness is almost 100% recovered from her cough. Phew! Finally the nightmare of feeding her medication is over. She has regained her appetite as well, back to her usual greedy self. Last night, she ate rice from my dinner plate and shortly ate her favourite baby bites biscuit as snack. I am quite sure at the rate shes eating now, it won't be long before she gain back all her baby fats!

Shes back to her old cheerful, curious, chirpy self. I was so glad to see her enjoying herself at my mum's place 2 days ago. My mum bought her a tiny stroller with a doll a few months back, but Royal Highness was afraid of the doll. Everytime we visit my mum, she'll only push the stroller without the doll in it. Guess shes managed to overcome her fear at last and will not only push the doll in the stroller but will also carry the doll when we ask her to.

She looks just like a little mummy bringing her baby for a walk. Heehee...so much like a little adult. Well, this little adult can now do these:

• Say "no more" accompanied by hand signal
• Say "no, no" accompanied by waving index finger
• Say "bye,bye" accompanied by waving her hand
• Say "apple, milk, ball, star"
• Say "woh, woh" when she sees a dog
• Kiss you accompanied with sound effects "muah" when you ask for a kiss
• Point to her nose when asked "where is your nose?"
• Point to her head when asked "where is your head?"
• Nod her head when asked "is it nice?" after she eats something
• Nod her head for Yes, shake her head for No
• Walk towards me with arms wide open when I say "bao, bao"

There might be more which I cannot recall at the moment but these are the little things she does which makes me feel so proud of her. Pretty soon she will grow so fast that I cannot list all of them down in time. Good job, my baby. Keep it up!

14 months Today!

Today is 24 Nov, Royal Highness is now a 14 month old toddler! Ah...time flies, I've been saying this so often ever since Royal Highness was born. Its simply amazing how a tiny infant weighing 3.5kg is now a bubbly, active, little girl. From just lying around all day on her back to slowly learning to flip on her tummy, sitting on her own, crawling on all fours, standing with support, walking independently and now attempting to climb and run! Royal Highness went through all these development in just 14 months of her life.

Besides physical growth, Royal Highness has also started to show that she is a girl with her own mind. She now knows what she likes, what she does not like and can shake her head and say "no". She is also capable of throwing tantrums in public places now if she is unhappy! Just yesterday, we brought her to Bookfest. She is a book lover and so she was terribly excited to see all the books everywhere. When we had to leave, she refused to go and insisted on staying behind by swaying her whole body, shaking her head and eventually lying on the floor kicking her legs! All these was of course accompanied by cries which became screams.

I know I am making her sound like a little terror, my friends said that Royal Highness is beginning to show symptoms of the Terrible 2. Ok, to be fair I must say Royal Highness is still a sweet and lovely girl most of the time. In fact, all the teachers in her infantcare adore her and confered her the title of Xiao Mei Nu. Most people we met said she looks like Daddy as she inherited his big eyes and long lashes. So I'm not complaining, as long as she gets the good looks in the family.

I started taking stock of Royal Highness developments last night after she surprised me with a new skill yesterday. She saw me unlocking my gate in the afternoon, we usually do not lock the gate so it was an exception yesterday. To my surprise, she found my keys later in the evening and immediately she walked towards the gate. I thought to myself, she can't be trying to open the gate as I did not teach her and she only saw it once. Guess I was wrong, she could remember how I did it and had learn to imitate my actions just by watching me once!

This experience really reinforces the idea that children see, children do. They are so observant and picks up alot of skills on their own. Look like we really have to be mindful of our language and behavior in front of Royal Highness all the time.

Sick Baby...

Last night was yet another visit to the GP's clinic. Royal Highness has been done with some type of virus attack every other week ever since she was diagnosed with HFMD a couple of months ago. This time round, she had very bad cough and diarrhoea. The GP prescribed 5 different medication.

Royal Highness has a phobia of taking medicine and its always a struggle to feed her. Imagine 5 syringes of medication I need to shoot down her throat while holding her down with both legs and 1 hand! It was such a traumatic experience for her that she wailed non stop which aggravated her cough and caused her to vomit again. Seeing her suffer like that, my heart aches...I couldn't bear to force her to take anymore medication so I let her drift to sleep while I nursed her.

Royal Highness has been totally breastfed from birth right till 8 months old, after which she is still on partial breastfeeding with only 1 supplement of formula milk. Till today, she is turning 14 months in a few days, I am still breastfeeding her. I had told Daddy that I was so tempted to wean her off totally. With her falling sick so frequently, Daddy actually hope I can breastfeed her as long as possible. It is said that breastfed babies have a better immune system and should fall ill last than non-breastfed babies. I certainly hope Royal Highness is benefiting from my breastmilk. Maybe if I did not breastfeed her, she would have been falling sick more often and more severely... So weaning her off is definitely not my priority now.

New Bikini

Royal Highness got her 4th piece of swimwear last week. Yup, I couldn't resist buying another cute little bikini for her. Her swimwear collection so far consists of a 1 piece swimming suit, a bikini, and a therma suit. This is her 2nd bikini and since she grows so fast, I'm sure she'll outgrow this soon. Then its time for her 3rd bikini and 4th piece of swimwear. I can't wait cos I had to take awhile to decide on which one to buy last week. All of them look so tiny and cute! I wished I could buy all of them. Well, since I can't fit into any bikini anymore... after birth stretch marks just don't go well with a sexy bikini. So I guess I can only fulfill my itsy bitsy bikini dream on Royal Highness!

Jacob Ballas Childrens Garden Carnival

Last Sunday, we brought Royal Highness to Jacob Ballas Childrens Garden at 9am. Yes, we were there at 9am...not because we were so eager to go to the garden but because I had to report for work at 9am. My organisation was participating in the Carnival with a stall selling children's arts & craft items. As a result, I had to be there early to setup shop and Daddy wanted to practice his photography skills so Royal Highness had to tag along with us.

I thought we were going to be the only crazy parents to be bringing their children there so early but it turned out that many parents actually decided to be early birds too. We saw many arriving at the garden even before us with children, babies in strollers and maid in tow. I guess its really a norm for parents with young children to wake up early even on weekends! I never got to sleep past 8am even on weekends ever since Royal Highness came along.

And so the morning started with families arriving and greeted with bubbles in the air at the carpark. Royal Highness enjoyed chasing the bubbles and walking round the carnival stalls, touching everything she can reach. By noon, she was so tired and sweaty that she fell asleep for 2 hours in her stroller. Yet, till then we have not even brought her into the garden as I was still busy at the stall which was at the carpark.

Finally at 3pm, after feeding Royal Highness with the hotdog bun bought from the Hard Rock Cafe stall we stepped into the garden. This was actually the second time Royal Highness has been to the garden. The first time she enjoyed walking around the place but was scared when we took her to the water play area. The huge jets of water was terrifying to her and kept wanting me to carry her.

With the last experience, I decided to let her just stay at the area where the low water jets are. It worked, she had a great time feeling the water jets with her hands. But as the weather was simply too hot, she started fussing after 15 mins and we took her out. Royal Highness gets very cranky when she feels hot and she perspires very easily. The next time I will only let her play when theres no sun, probably in the early morning or early evening. Hopefully she will do better than 15 mins on her third visit.

celebrating婆婆birthday

We celebrated Royal Highness's 婆婆 birthday last Sunday with a yummy marble cheesecake from secret recipe. Royal Highness enjoyed eating cheesecake and kept asking for more.

For dinner we had teppanyaki at Sakae Teppanyaki. It was a great meal complete with foie gras and oyster! 婆婆 loves foie gras and oyster so it was the perfect place to enjoy both delicacies cooked to perfection right in front of you.

birthday girl

This was taken on 24 September 2008. Royal Highness turned 1 year old on that day.

We threw her a party a few days before that and just had a private celebration for her on her actual birthday. She was smiling as we sang her a birthday song and I felt so happy that she is growing up to be such a brillant little girl.

my 1st post

I am typing this with a certain nervousness...I have never been good with words and often find myself searching for the right words to express myself. Setting up this blog is definitely a huge challenge I am giving myself.

So why the challenge? Well...although the blogging nation has long since created a huge wave on the internet, I have never been attracted to it. I guess things changed and so do people. After reading many blogs by fellow mummies who diligently recorded their darlings growth and milestones, I find myself inspired.

Is it a little late to start now? Afterall, my daughter whom we call Royal Highness is already 13 months old now! I believe its never too late or too much to tell someone how much you love her and I will continue declaring my love for my Royal Highness through this blog. I hope to document all the wonderful times we have together so that we can all laugh over these fond memories when she is all grown up.

There you have it, my first post and more to come.