Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I was telling Little Darling that daddy would bring us for turkey feast this afternoon, so he must take his morning nap and he really did take a good nap this morning! :-)

After cleaned and changed him, I gave a ring to my friend who also wanted to bring her two kids out.

IMM was not as crowded as expected! May be all were rushing down town rather than going to the neighbourhood shopping malls! So many people were looking at Little Darling every now and then, just because he was the only one wearing a blinking Santa hat! There were so many people wearing it when we were at Orchard Road a day before Christmas Eve, it was surprising that he was the only one wearing a blinking Santa hat at IMM on Christmas Day!

Little Darling just could not sit tight, he was moving left and right, looking up and down, wanting to climb out from his high chair! In less then five minutes’ wait, he started to shout and scream…. Sigh! I thought he was only suitable to dine at kopitiams! To keep him quiet, I kept feeding him ice water and juice, showing him the menu and things hanging on the ceiling and wall just to keep him occupied, hopefully he would stay out of mischiefs till the food was served!

Finally our food with us! Our greedy Darling clapped his little hands to show that he liked the food very much! He enjoyed drinking soup and eating turkey meat very much! ‘ mum mum, mum mum… ‘He was asking for more!

One hour meal time had past! We were heading to the Garden Plaza to meet with Aunty Candy and her two kids. There were so many kids playing at the playground! Our Little Darling enjoyed himself very much playing in daddy’s company. Daddy was complaining about his backache yet Little Darling took slide times and again refusing to stop!

There were many kids having fun at the water playground, mummy wanted Little Darling to join in as well. At first, Little Darling was a bit timid, he held daddy’s hands tight and dared not step near to the fountain. He shied away when water shooting up or pouring down. After few minutes’ warming up, he became so daring! He enjoyed himself very much with the water games! On and off he secretively drank the water oblivious to what mummy had told him in advance that he was not to do so! I did not expect he could really take instruction though, after all he was just a baby! After half an hour soaking in the cold water, mummy insisted that we had to go home before he would catch a cold (the weather was cool, it was drizzling and the water is cold)!

Little Darling was grouchy on the way home. Seemed like he had not had enough fun! Daddy promised to bring him to swim when we reached home.

He enjoyed himself very much at the pool. He was shivering when daddy brought him to the slide in the pool (there is a play station at our baby pool). Little Darling just wanted to play though mummy mentioning to him it was time to go home. Half an hour later, mummy had to drag him home by force worrying that he might catch a cold. Also we had to prepare to go to my in-laws house for dinner.

Joining The Crowd At Orchard Road

I really had headache as it had kept raining in the afternoon in the past two weeks. We wanted to find a fine day to bring our Little Darling to Orchard Road for him to have some festive feel! Again it heavily rained at 5pm+. We decided to go for our yummy yummy seafood pasta dinner and perhaps postpone our Orchard Road outing to after Christmas! Who knows weather turned good after 6pm, so quickly we swallowed our food and headed to our jingle bell wonderland!

Little Darling was tired as he had skipped his afternoon nap and he was sound asleep on the way to Orchard Road. He looked listless initially but he was now busy looking around on Orchard Road! It was so crowded everywhere in Orchard Road! Christmas decorations and lightings were dazzling! Everywhere people were snapping away with their cameras and we did so! Daddy, mummy and xiao yi took turns to carry Little Darling around; sometimes he would walk on his own! Uncle Steven would like to carry him very much but he snobbed his offer.

A 3 ½ hours walk was definitely not sufficient for us to soak ourself in this wonderful festive atmosphere but our Little Darling was tired and started to yawn and get cranky.

Continue To Be SAHM vs Working?

Mummy would become grouchy wanting to quit as SAHM when angry with Little Darling especially when he is not behaving well and keeps annoying mummy. Mummy always thinks that he will be more disciplined if he attends formal lessons taught by trained teachers. But mummy was in dilemma last week! Working or continue to be our little Towkay’s maid? Eventually made up mind this afternoon to continue be our little Towkay maid for may be another one more year before back to working life!

A head hunter company approached mummy to go for a job interview as a Regional Finance Manager two weeks ago. Mummy has no confidence at all that people will pick me but just thinking of going for a feel of the market and gain back some confidence. More than eight years has passed since my last interview. That is a big US company with more than 30 offices worldwide. The role of this position is to handle Asia Pacific group accounts and all other finance related matters covering India, China, Korea, Australia, Philipines and Sinagapore. I like this job very much as a lot of exposure, a lot of new tasks that I am looking forward to do like involves in acquisitions and mergers, business studies and controlling, investment possibilities, set up system in the new acquired companies etc.

I hesitating to accept this job after the second interview with the immediate superior - The Global Financial Controller because he mentioned that travel is needed but I was told travel is not compulsory and I can ‘remote control’ from Sinagpore during my first meeing with the HR Manager.

I rejected the invitation for third interview with the Finance Vice President and the local Vice President initially. However I went on with the interview after I learnt that the Finance Vice President was purposely made this trip to Sinagpore to meet the potential candidates. I thought I would be rejected by him! Who knows, I was selected. This supposedly a good news but turned into a headache beacause the travel requirement. A teleconference was arranged for me to talk to the HR Vice President immediately in the afternoon on the same day to negotiate on remuneration package. I still did not intend to accept the job due to the frequent travelling. After that there were numerous telephone communications from the company to persuade me to join them and they offered me a fantastic remuneration package.

That was an attractive offer no less in terms of $$$. With that amount of income, daddy and mummy can retire many years earlier then plan, daddy and mummy can provide our Little Darling a luxurous life style, can buy him branded stuff & fantastic toys, bring him for wonderful tours etc. But…….. I just could not make up my mind to leave our Little Darling with other caretaker (either baby sitter or childcare center). He just a 15months+ old baby, he couldn’t tell if he falls down, falls sick, unhappy or bitten by others. I am worried that he might feel insecure when he could not find mummy for so many hours. He may feel sad and worried when he needs mummy yet could not find mummy around. He may feel anxious and miserable when he needs hug and kiss yet mummy not with him! After a balance exercise, between the income and the importance of our Little Darling, I think nothing is more important than our little one. Material gains are nothing compared to our little one! Moreover daddy did not approve my ‘resignation’ as SAHM!

One week was over and I have to reply them this afternoon. I felt so sorry to disappoint them, to insist on not accepting the post. But looking back I have no regret for my decision! Though I may feel like back to work when Little Darling too naughty and his mischievious behavior upset me… but that just thoughts only! I will only feel safe and contented when hugging our little Darling in my arms! :-)

Grow Hair Mission

Hi, how time flies! It’s time to update about our hair-growing mission!

Two months past since we started to apply hair-growing lotion on Little Darling’s ‘botak’ (bald) head! It worked. The front part had grown to about 0.5cm but the center and some parts at the back was much longer, about 5cm to 7cm! Result is satisfactory! May be Little Darling has very fine hair, so one cannot tell his hair had grown long from far! But my mother and sisters said his hair is too messy, the long ones always ‘flying’ and standing up and wanted me to trim Little Darling’s hair! But I just simply ignored it! Hehe……

Many people was shocked when they learnt that our Darling’s hair had not yet grown long and the current result came from his 15months’ effort! Some aunties advised me to apply liquor. There is a belief that that would help hair growth! But I am still hesitating because worry of side-effect! But I will continue to apply hair lotion and believe that in time to come our Little Darling will have thick and long hair!

Little Darling Starts To 'READ' Pictures

‘Book! Book! Book!....’ Our Little Darling will pester me to give him a book when he is free or when he is too bored with his toys! Wheh he gets hold of a book, he will sit down and start to flip through the pages and read ‘pictures’ . He can recognize quite a number of items like things at home, animals, fruits, flowers, colours, etc. As he can only speak a few words, I will read out the name of items and let him point, correct him on the spot if he did not point to the right one!

He starts to like reading recently. We bought him some books but when we realized that we couldn’t catch up with his ‘reading’ speed, daddy decided to borrow from library instead. It’s more economical, less time-consuming to acquire the books and gives more varieties! He likes animals’ books more as compared to others.

He can recognize many different types of wild animals, farm animals and some of their sounds and babies. I am satisfied with his progress but of course hope that he can learn and master more!

We started to count and came to know that he can speak more then 50 single words only this afternoon when our PD was recording his progress on his healthbook!!! Its amazing and our PD was very happy with him.

As rough idea, these are words that Little Darling can speak: apple, egg, dog, milk, purple, bear, potato, pear, ya, not, pineapple, dad dad, mummy, jeh jeh(elder sister), meh meh (younger sister), di di (younger brother), yi yi (aunty), mah (grandma), yeh yeh (grandpa), eat, book, bite, elbow, pig, rabbit, mug, ink, duck, chick, neh neh (milk), pork, yard, bread, ball, play play, no more, bye, blue, hiss, roar, baa, neigh, oink, dirty, star, bag, baby, lemon, take, put, back, big.

Words that is not very clear are yallow (yellow), bah (bus), wooter (water).

Other than this, he can point to the right place when you read for him our body part like eyes, nose, ears, hair, tummy, buttock, elbow, toes, mouth, tongue, fingers & legs!

You will amazing by his wittiness when you playing with him about animal sounds: When we say what does pig say, he will say oink, you say horse, he will says neigh, snake is hiss, sheep is baa, lion is roar, cow is moo and hen is cluck. He would make some funny expression when saying out the animal sounds which will make you laugh till drop! He is the little apple at home and at my parent and parent-in-laws home.

His SM Teacher commented that our Little Darling has the best performance in the class! His concentration span is the longest in the class and he really behave himself and doing well in all activities except sometimes when he becomes grouchy and naughty from lack of nap. When his teacher teaching phonics in the class, he can speaks some of the word like a apple, b bear, d dog, e egg, i ink, r rabbit & y yard. I think it is worth of our effort of sending and fetching him from school and spending time coaching him at home. This is the greatest reward to me for sacrificing my career to stays home as a fulltime housewife.

We are looking forwards to his speaking proper sentences! It must be a wonderful time to speak with him then! :-)

Bad Temper + Bad Habit!

Little Darling has very bad temper; he would yell, shout and cry when unhappy. He would often beat his own head repeatedly when he is angry e.g. when you scold him.

He has become so strong that I have no strength to hold him up when he struggles in throwing tantrums. The worst thing is that in this few weeks he has started to beat his own head repeatedly if you scold him or he is angry! I have been telling him not to beat his own head, must ‘sayang’ his head … blah blah blah…. which he has been ignoring! I was wondering if he not felt painful when he beat his own head! I have asked him to beat his own buttock instead to no avail.

Our petty Little Darling is really petty and very sticky recently. He would stick fast to mummy like glue on paper! He would sometimes call me non-stop for nothing ‘ mummy, mummy, mee mee mee……!’ He would simply refuse to play or read books by himself, pester mummy to do it with him together. I would be happy to do so but I just could not attend to him all the times as I have to prepare his meals, do the washing and other housework. Now I can only do all these when he is sleeping, other than this, I would be occupied by the Little one!!!!!

Headache!

Sunday Morning at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

We had wasted many weekends staying indoor due to wet weather and the fact that three of us took turns to fall sick. We woke up early this morning and were happy to see Mr. Sun! Daddy said since we woke up relatively early and was good weather, we might as well go to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, which we had planned to bring our Little Darling there for quite some time.

There were two extreme expressions, mummy looked haggard and tired but Little Darling was fresh and energetic, though both had not fully recovered from flu.

There were so many cars at the carpark, it seemed like many people sharing the same sentimental as ours --- is time to get out from home and soaking ourselves in the glowing sunshine. Little Darling was comfortably sitting on his stroller getting ready for our today’s wonderful trip. But…. But… but…. How come there were so many unwelcome ‘blood suckers’! Hardly could Mummy had time to bring out the mozzie repelling leaves (from a kind of plant with smell that repels mosquitoes), there were five or six mosquitoes attacked his forehead, hands and legs!!!!!!! It is so heart raking seeing Little Darling’s forehead, hands and legs swollen and turned red instantly. His tender skin is very sensitive and hard to recover after mosquito bites. After that daddy and mummy were on the look out to prevent attack from mosquitoes.

This is ‘rich’ mangroves, there were so many birds, insects and wildlife to see along the walkway! Happened it was high tide, we saw a lot of baby monitor lizards, tree-climbing crabs and many other unknown small animals and reptiles crawling around and some rested on the tree trunks. There were many different types of birds like sandpipers, swallows, egrets, herons etc were busying looking for food at the mud area. Mummy is that type who very scared of reptile, she was jumping and screaming all the way because frightened by the small monitor lizards, but Little Darling was enjoying seeing them!

We came to the aerie, mummy wanted to stop half way up but Little Darling insisted to climb all the up to the top. He enjoyed climbing staircases but I think daddy must very tired by supporting him! Both daddy and little boy were wet perspiring when reached the top. Look, he was so happy and enjoying the scenery while resting on the bench top of the aerie.

After 20 minutes break, en route back we though of sidetracking to the prawn pond which is 500m away from the ‘Y junction’ where we were. We were happily walking towards the objective enjoying scenery around, suddenly daddy shouted ‘big lizard ahead’ mummy almost fainted on seeing a big monitor lizard which was dashing out from bushes. Daddy quickly carried Little Darling out from his stroller and hugged him tight and hurried back to the entrance. On the way we were frightened by another small monitor lizard lying by the side of the path.

We visited the Nature Museum next to the café at the entrance before we left the nature park. There was a big monitor lizard (about 1.5m length) lying on the river bank 2 feet away from the viewing panel of the museum. Many kids including our Little Darling were so happy to have such a close look at it and parents were busy snapping photos of this big lizard!

It was a new experience to us. We learnt that we would be more alert during this kind of outdoor activity especially in a nature reserve environment where we might bump into any type of wildlife. We have to prepared that it might be exhausted as we have to take turn to carry our Little Darling. Nevertheless, we felt fresh and more energetic after the two and half hours walking while perspiring! It would have been more enjoyable if we had not been frightened by the ‘giant’ monitor lizard! :P :P :P

Little Darling took a 5-hour nap in the afternoon, he was very tired after good 'exercises'!

Little Darling's Favourite 'Hobby'!

‘Dad dad, dad dad….’ Little Darling would shout dad dad whenever he sees telephone or handphone. He likes to make phone calls to daddy who is working in the office. At home when the phone rings, he would say dad dad. When I on the phone, he would say dad dad and wants to talk to dad dad. But he would push away the phone when daddy tells him be a good boy!!!! Maybe he knows that that is a mission impossible! hahahaha..............

He likes to play with handset, always pick it up and anyhow press numbers and act as if he is using the phone! So next time if you can’t get through to our home line, you should know who is the culprit ! :-)

Visit to An Orchid Garden

Little Darling likes purple colour very much. He is interested in all things purple like purple grapes, purple orchids, purple-colour flags, etc……

Today is Deepavali, daddy need not go work. So we decided to bring him to visit to orchid garden which is not far from our place. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, sky was so blue with a lot of white clouds. This orchid garden is sited in a rural area far from the city, it is very quiet, surrounded by the greenery, air is so fresh and best of all it is not crowded! There were many swallows chirping and flying in the sky! We were wondering how is this orchid garden compared with another one in the city. We will bring Little Darling there one day!


There were some ang-moh and Japanese tourists at the garden, some were drinking coffee at the café, some admiring flowers in the garden, some busy taking photos and some sitting on benches enjoying the afternoon sun! We met two well equipped photographers were shooting the pink hibiscus and a crimson- coloured humming bird that is busy collecting honey from some big flowers! What is lovely sight!

We went round admiring the beautiful orchids and snapping away with our camera. There are so many different varieties and colours of orchids in the garden. As expected Little Darling likes purple colour orchids very much! He kept shouting ‘purple, purple, purple’ and clapping both of his hands showing that he was very happy! :-D :-D :-D

Mummy's Darling, Mummy's Headache!

Little Darling is becoming more mischievous and stubborn day by day. Mummy believed he understood what I told him but he was just being naughty and stubborn. He always seems to have his own opinion and will insist on it; no matter what and how mummy tells him, whether soft and hard approaches are applied on him! For example, when he refuses to eat porridge, he will keep his mouth shut and lips sealed. No matter how hard mummy tries to coax him, he will not open his ‘golden’ mouth. Sometimes when mummy was really furious, he will get scolded or smacked. But again he would not open his mouth!

I used to be a working woman. I quitted to take care of our precious Darling after he was born and since then I hardly have time to do something else, be it exercise or rest. This has caused me to become short tempered and sometimes really feel like giving up being a SAHM. I have mentioned many times to daddy that I would like to quit as SAHM and go back to work. This Little one can really drive me nuts till I have headache and chest pain. I knew that he is too young to understand things but you know what!? I could spend my whole afternoon just to feed him milk and swing him in the sarong for 3, 4 hours and he napped for just 10 mins. He was tired but he just refused to go to sleep. He would become cranky and wail if I stopped swing him and put him down. Sometimes I really was lost and did not know how to handle him.

The most stressful time is during classes. I was always very worried on those days because when he is not in good mood due to lack of nap in the afternoon before going to class. He would simply throw tantrums, shout and refuse to listen and sit in the class. He is so strong to twist and turn till I have no strength to hold him.

He is growing bigger and stronger while I am getting older and weaker, I am worried that one day I will be unable to handle him anymore! Wondering when then our Little Darling could understand and know to appreciate our advice and teaching……..