Kieran, 3 year old

Kieran is 3 year old and he is very active, smart, cheeky and happy.
He actually can tell me, "爸爸去哪裡？我很想爸爸。我們一家人在一起才幸福嘛。"
Once he spoilt my iPhone cover and he knew he was wrong. He said "Mummy, I'm so sorry. 我弄壞你的東西。"
Makes my heart melt when he said it! We don't know where he learn to say such things from!

I am teaching him some basics of writing, reading, alphabets in capital letters and small letters, 1-10, and some chinese words.

We do bread making together.

We do painting together.

Everyday, when the weather is fine, we go to the playground together.

We do lots of fun together!

Caitlin, 20 months

The problem with his little toddler is that she is super clingy to me. I'm her source of comfort and food which never fails to sooth her day or night, on demand at any time whenever I'm in her sight. So as long as she sees me, she will fuss for "Ma ma! Ma ma! Milk!" Sigh. My parents said that when I leave her with them, she is totally a perfect little angel, she will play by herself, play with her gor gor and she won't cry and fuss.

Speech Milestones:

She can speak a lot of words now.
She can call everybody in the family including "gu po" and "ye ye".
She can tell people what she wants and what she doesn't. Boy, she's very obstinate on what she thinks is right! A typical conversation goes like this:

Mummy points to picture of a camel and says, "Mei mei, camel!"
Caitlin shakes head in disagreement, "Horse!"
Mummy says, "No, camel."
Caitlin says, "horse!"
Mummy says, "Camel."
Caitlin stamps her feet and shouts, "Horse!"
Mummy says, "Ok, horse."
Caitlin nods, "Horse."

The same goes for duck and goose (I say goose, she says duck when it's obviously a goose!).
When gor gor snatches her things or shouts at her, she looks pitiful, points at him and complains to me "Gor gor! Gor gor!"

She likes to use her sweet girly voice to say "Share share?" whenever Kieran disallow her to play with his toys or when I disallow her to play with my iPhone. Very smart girl. The sweet voice and cute face just melt your heart and make you so incline to say yes.

Physical Milestones:

She's rather petite but she's within the normal weight and height range, and she looks chubby. So we are not worried.
She can climb up the playground slide, ladder, anything with little assistance. Very agile and active. Kieran wasn't as brave and agile at her age.Caitlin rushes to the playground and squeal in delight. Kieran would look fearful and stand by to observe before he decides its safe to climb up the playground ladder.

Caitlin is walking!

Little Caitlin is walking! She took her first few steps a few days ago and she's 16 months. She's walking very steadily now! Watching her toddling around makes my heart burst with joy. She's so tiny and cute and she's walking so gingerly, putting both arms out to balance and bravely taking steady steps one by one!

She's talking a lot too. She can say "No more" and make the no more hand sign. I love it when she says this because she sounds just so demure and cute! And she'll say "yeah..." sweetly when she meant yes to our questions. So sweet!

Left handed?

Kieran has been showing preference for left hands. Here's a picture of him tracing straight lines. I've got him a few books from Popular Bookstore that he can practise tracing, reading etc.

I'm amazed by this boy's intellectual development. At just 3 years old, he can recite several Tang poems (唐诗), recites 满江红 and first few verses of 弟子规, talks and reasons like an adult, understands Mandarin mostly but also understands and speaks some English, recognise several Chinese words like (人，外，小，一，多), and can already trace lines well enough. I'm not starting on the writing because I don't want him to learn how to read and write so quickly but I think if I do, he'll be able to write well already.

And my mom came to teach me how to make tasty soft bread today!

Before baking

After baking.

Easy to guess which shape is for Kieran and which is for Caitlin! Car shape bread for Kieran and bear shape one for Caitlin :)

The children shaped the dough and played with the flour. Delicious and healthy wholemeal bread for the family!

Kieran is obsessed with Transformers and any vehicles that can transform into robots lately. He's a fan of Robocar Poli and Tobot! Here's daddy teaching Kieran how to transform an Autobot Hound, and Mei mei Caitlin is watching closely beside them. A family bonding time before bed.

Caitlin's First Step!

As of today, Caitlin is 15 months and 24 days old. Today, she just took her first step! She has been trying to stand and walk by herself since last month and today, she has finally done it! Hurray! Baby steps but our guess is that before the end of the week, she'll be toddling around the house!

We went to Changi Airport Terminal 3 to see the Disney installations. Here's Caitlin at the T3 Kopitiam (where there's vegetarian food stall! Yeah!) drinking from her sippy cup by herself.

Caitlin looking cute!

Kieran looking cute!

Enjoying home cooked kway teow and mee, cooked with love by daddy. Even when going out, we make sure the children have healthy home cooked meals. We bought a good tumbler (保温壶) to keep the food warm.

Little Caitlin is also developing well speech wise. 

Here's some of the milestones reached.

Motor skills:

• Great hand eye coordination. She picks up tiny objects from the ground with great expertise. We just have to make sure she don't put them into her mouth.
• Can cruise around the house.
• Crawls well and now learning to walk. Can take a few steps unaided!

Speech skills:

• Calls mama, ah mah, papa, gor gor (calls him da da)
• Tries to vocalise "ah gong" but can't say out.
• Recognise and says bear as "Bah"
• Recognise many objects like apple (she makes a eating gesture), rabbit (she jumps), lion (she roars), cow (she moos), goat (she says baa!), fish and bird (she makes kiss gesture to shows she loves them), flowers (she says "hua"), stars (makes twinkle twinkle gestures with hands), sun (sings ah ah ah because I sing 太阳公公 whenever I point to the sun), moon (she tries to say "moon").

Although Caitlin's speech development isn't as fast as her gor gor's, she's quite on par with children at her age. Jia you, Caitlin! It's such a joy to hug this little angel close to me everyday, smell her pleasant scent, kiss her soft cheek and feel her soft hair everyday! And she's so loving. She will kiss my cheek and daddy's cheek. She's not as milk milk addict as Kieran was before but she definitely loves her milk milk. She still nurses a few times a day and every time to sleep. She wakes up several times at night to nurse. But I'm not complaining. Co-sleeping helps very much in getting enough sleep for me, and she soothes back to sleep easily with nursing. Her favourite person is mummy! Who else can provide food (milk), comfort, fun all in one?

One thing I notice about play in Caitlin that is very different from Kieran, is that when she is given an object like a ring, she will put it over her arm and wear it like a bangle. Kieran will never attempt that! It's a girl thing, I guess? Haha. Children never cease to amaze me :)

Updates on the kids!

I FINALLY HAVE TIME TO BLOG!

Time to update this blog...

Phew... Taking care of 2 children isn't easy. Even with my mom here to help on weekdays.

Little baby Caitlin is now 7 weeks 3 days old.

She's a little darling. She's STILL in the eat, sleep, pee & poo phase. Thank goodness. She's a rather peaceful baby and easy to care for although there's one thing that isn't easy... When she's hungry, she don't give warning. She'll suddenly wake up from sleep, and give a sudden and loud and shrill cry which escalates to scream within minutes if milk isn't served. My mom said she's a fierce girl!

I'm a little sad that she didn't inherit her daddy's eyes and nose. Never mind, she's still our pretty princess.

She's 4.3kg at 6 weeks. Doctor said she's on 25th-50th percentile during her check up and first vaccination at Sengkang Polyclinic.

Babies grow up so quickly. She could fit into many of the 0-3 months rompers now, and even though the 3-6 months romper looks big on her, she could wear them too.

Breastfeeding is a breeze. Really easy for a second time mom who has breastfed the older child to toddlerhood.

Now Kieran.

I tried giving the breast to Kieran and once put it into his mouth and ask him to suck. He smiles shyly whenever I ask him to try. And he kept refusing. One time, he tried and I felt him sucking it like sucking the straw. He only sucked once and said he don't want it.

I enjoy hugging my little Kieran. He's so much fun! He could sing and recite all of the nursery rhymes and the poems we taught him, even the Hokkien ones! I watched him play with his cars, trucks, legos, everything with wheels, noisily making zroooom, zrooooom, beep beep sounds, and I wondered how long can he be in such adorable and innocent phase? He asked me to pat him to sleep, and he turned around to say "bye bye ah gong, bye bye mah" in such a sweet manner that my parents laughed. Sometimes he will say bye bye to his cars and trucks and tell them that he will play with them later. He held on to my blouse, followed behind me and sing the choo choo train song as he walked. When he first learnt to walk, he used to say "walk nat, walk nat, walk nat." when he hold my hand and happily walk around with me. He invented the words himself. Many months later, now, he suddenly say "walk nat, walk nat" as he held my hand and lead me into a room. He hadn't held my hand to walk in the house for a very long time since he could walk by himself. Now that he could explain himself, I asked him what he means by "walk nat". He thought for a very long time and then replied "Walk walk lor." LOL.

At one year old, Kieran could vocalise sounds to mean different objects like "ah per" for apple and "mah" for mummy.

At 13 months, he could call everyone. He could call "mama, papa, ah gong, ah mah, nai nai, yeye, gu po, etc".

Before he's 18 months, he could already name all objects correctly, and if you tell him something, he repeats after you. At first he could only say 2 syllabus like "helicopter", he would say "hop ter" but gradually, he spoke 3 syllabus. He repeats after you when you talk to him, and he will laugh and giggle, but he didn't actually reply you.

At 19 months, one day, when I was tidying the room and moving a clothes rack, he came to "help" and move the clothes rack too. I told him "it's dangerous!" Kieran turned to look meaningfully at me when I said that, and I thought he would repeat after what I said. Instead, he surprised me by replying, "No lah." And I surprised him by laughing out loud. From then onwards, he could reply our questions meaningfully. At 19 months, he could actually have a conversation with us. If you ask him "Kieran, is this a pear?", he no longer repeats "pear" after you. He would reply "Yes, pear." or "No, banana"

At 20 months, he could recite the entire nursery rhymes from memory. We were fooling around, hubby, Kieran and I at the living room, and Kieran suddenly sang "San Lun Che" (三轮车) and pronounced the words so well! Yilin and I were so surprised, we stopped to listen and clapped loudly after Kieran's done. He laughed and continued to talk and sing more. He really couldn't stop talking once he started.

At 22 months, he could talk in full sentences and he replied you intelligently if you called him on a telephone and talk to him. He could tell you what he learnt in school, and where he went, and who bought what for him, and who taught him which song.

So its a great pleasure playing with and talking to little Kieran. He loves hugs and cuddles and he'll often run to me and hug me. He's such a darling! I'm sure little Caitlin will also grow up a talker with her older brother's influence!

Kieran is 23 months, 1 week and 6 days old today. He'll be celebrating his 2 year old birthday soon! I'm bringing him to have a birthday celebration at Swenson's at NEX this Friday. Kieran has 2 other friends, Jodi and Xin Ning who were born around the same date at the same year, and they are my friends' daughters, so we mummies are going to celebrate the 3 rabbit babies' birthday together. The kids will love the ice cream cake! On 6 October, we'll do another celebration for him at Ye ye & Nai nai's house and this one will be with all his favourite loved ones. Grandparents, grandaunt, uncle and 2 aunts will be there. And on 10 October, the actual day, we are going to his school at 3pm with a cake and celebrate his birthday there, singing birthday song with all his teachers and classmates.

We're going to have lots of fun!

Kieran during Lantern festival held by Ci Ai Education Incubator, his Childcare centre.

At the playground during the Lantern carrying walkabout.

Peekaboo!

One of my favourite photos of the night.

Kieran and mummy!

Kieran reciting Chinese Nursery Rhyme

I promised to upload Kieran's video of him reciting “三轮车跑得快”, so here it is. 

I tried to capture him saying 弟子规（总序）but he refused. So better luck next time!

3rd trimester tired mummy & smart 20 month old Kieran

3rd trimester.

The tiredness really sets in.

I'm glad my mom comes to help so that I can occasionally hide away in my room while Kieran is with her outside. Glad my dad and my mother in law comes to help too. I can't imagine being away from Kieran for long period of time.

The haze is terrible. Even now when the PSI level is lower and not as choking as few days ago, I still feel that the air quality is not good. I'm not letting Kieran go outdoors often and I myself wear N95 or a surgical mask if its not that bad, whenever I need to send Kieran to school or bring him back, or bring him to nearby shopping malls.

Kieran is getting really smart!

2 days ago, he shocked us by reciting the Di Zi Gui （弟子規）and he's only 20 months old!

I'll try to upload his super cute video soon. He could recite the first few verses:

弟子规　圣人训　首孝弟　次谨信
泛爱众　而亲仁　有余力　则学文

He can also recite the nursery rhyme:
三轮车  跑得快  上面坐个老太太
要五毛  给一块  你说奇怪不奇怪？

Hubby and I were laughing and feeling so happy when he recited all these. Kieran learns things very fast. We just casually taught him these and he picked them up so soon.


He also loves to sing and sings along whenever I sing him nursery rhyme songs. He will occasionally sings out wheel on the bus, twinkle twinkle little star and 一闪一闪亮晶晶. Its so interesting to hear him sing. Children really have super brains. Absorbs so fast! All the more I must be a good example and not teach him bad things. Or let him see me say or do bad things. There was once he kept saying 吃大便 (eat shit in mandarin) and hubby was very angry, and firmly told him no! and hit his palm. He said that the next day again and was scolded again. Not sure who taught him that as we didn't say it. Maybe papa accidentally said it and he picked it up. Parents are role models for our children and we've got to be careful of our thoughts and behaviours at all times. If I find my child is naughty, the first thing to do is to reflect upon myself (检视自己) as there must be things I have said or done, consciously or subconsciously that affects my beloved child. Understand oneself, understand the child, only then can one be a good parent. Parenthood is such a challenging and yet wonderful journey that I love!