Sweet Lil' Baby

I love watching Royal Highness when shes asleep. Her sweet little face is even more angelic when shes peacefully in dreamland. It makes me feel like kissing her, hugging her and many times I can't help caressing her face and smelling her hair. I'm sure most mummies behave the same as we can never have enough of our babies.

Royal Highness is not only melting my heart when shes sleeping...these days her favourite word is "Ma Mee" which is her way of calling me! She calls out "ma mee" to me all the time and the word just sound so sweet, it makes me melt. Hearing her call mummy is the best reward I can get and my efforts in breastfeeding her is all worth it!

Ist working day in 2009

Todays the first working day of a brand new year. Somehow I don't feel any different from last year when I woke up this morning. Still dreading the pile of work waiting for me in the office...but thats life, no work no $.

Anyway to keep my spirits up till 6pm today, I am going to post some cute pictures of Royal Highness. Actually was intending to post something on the new year countdown but it did not turn out to be very eventful. In fact, Royal Highness slept through the journey from Clarke Quay MRT till exactly 12 midnight when the fireworks went off. She woke up due to the noise from the cheering crowd at Boat Quay and managed to catch the fireworks.

My new year's wish is for Royal Highness to be healthy and more obedient! She is getting real good at throwing tantrums these days. The terrible 2 is really approaching! Argh!

Look how "Cool" my sunglasses are!

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.