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'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 :)