Infantcare Pictorial Update

Little monkey

Christmas party in school complete with gift exchange :)

New Year's Eve

Another party at our place! New Year's Eve :) We had a house packed with people over for dinner, and some stayed all the way to the countdown. Hadn't seen this bunch for a long time and it was good to finally meet up again. One I hadn't seen since before I delivered!

Besides the adults, two other kids came by too - Evan and Isaac. Initially Asher was very cranky, and after refusing dinner I decided to bathe him since he appeared to want a shower. The shower did wonders for Asher's mood as he suddenly because alert and chirpy again! So the three boys reigned while the adults watched over to make sure they didn't fall, didn't hit each other, didn't take each other's toys...you know how it goes - normal kid stuff.

But then, it wasn't just the kids enjoying the spread of toys. Lets see... :)





























Anyway it's quite late at night, and I'm quite sleepy (and lazy) right now. So I'll let the pictures speak for themselves :)

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Canine Christmas

We started the day slowly, lazing in (that means sleeping in till 8am...yes, that's lazing nowadays...gone are the good ol' days of waking at 11am. That's an unheard of luxury, an impossible luxury these days. But I shall end this very long parenthesis...).

Our first stop, Woodlands, for the yearly feast at Joanne's mum's place. First, an interesting little nugget (to me at least). I had put Asher's shoes on the table top cos he kept wanting to take them and bring them to his playmat. I thought he didn't know I had put them there cos they were out of his sight. But before we left the house, he tip-toed to retrieve his shoes on his own, and pointed to them to indicate he wanted to wear them for the outing! :) I was quite pleasantly surprised!













Anyway, it appears that Asher loves dogs. There were many dogs in the house, and Asher ran around following them, petting them, and sometimes just looking at them. There were one or two that he seemed to like more, partly cos they were friendlier towards him as well. These two were the ones he liked best, and he gamely pet their fur, and tried to stay near them most of the time :)












The feast on the table, and Asher below waving at the dogs










We went to Aunty Evelyn's house for dinner too, and there we saw another two dogs! And Asher again crouched near them to pet their noses and their fur :) Maybe we can consider getting a doggie in time... Jon, are you reading this???!? :O)

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve was spent at our place with my family, and in the run up to it we were reminiscing a little about how my parents used to hold a big Christmas party every year. I have many fond memories of Christmas spent together with my family and family friends, feasting, playing bingo, listening to the adults joke and chat, playing with my cousins and neighbours, staying up late, etc. I remember the pile of gifts under the Christmas tree that my mum and I would put up together, and my dad picking up each gift and announcing who it was for and from whom, and each person opening the gift there and then :)

It's the first time we had a Christmas gathering with the little ones, even though technically it's their second Christmas. Last year they were too young to really know what was going on, especially Aidan, since he was born just about a week before Christmas!

But one year on, what a difference! The two of them toddling about, babbling, gesturing, playing :) Asher was too sleepy to stay up, so he only received and opened his presents the next morning. But Aidan happily opened his presents to unravel toy trucks and books!

My mum had lovingly prepared dinner of aglio olio pasta, creamed cauliflower, potato gratin, sausages, fresh salad, and TQ brought minestrone soup. All very hearty and healthy. But we eventually moved on to more sinful pleasures like chocolate lava cake with ice-cream, fruit cake and such.

Christmas with family feels right, and I'm glad we spent time chatting, and finding out more little quirks that each of us have (like toothbrushing idiosyncracies...) ;)

Lets keep up this Christmas tradition!

p/s: TQ - pictures!!

Asher Turns One!

Asher's one! How quickly time passes. Yet, how slowly as well.

It doesn't seem like very long ago when we heard Asher's first cry, but yet, so much has happened this year that it seems like such a long year!

Time is strange, and I'll never fully understand it.

What I do know is that I've treasured all the wonderful moments spent getting to know Asher, even if that involved changing his poopy diapers. And with each passing day, with each aspect of his personality that I'm discovering, I'm loving him more and more :)

Asher, you are an affectionate boy who loves to give Mummy hugs and kisses, and enjoy being smoothered with hugs and kisses from everyone as well. You have a good sense of humour, and easily get the joke. And when you do, you can break into the most infectious chuckle I've ever known :) You are very active, and a phrase I commonly hear since you were just a few months old is, "It's so difficult to take photos of Asher - he's always a blur because he can't stop moving!"

You like flowers ("ba-ber"), birds ("bir"), buses ("bah"), bikes ("bie"), balloons ("ba-boon"), balls ("boh"), and stars ("dar", with hands opening and closing) - somehow most of the words you're learning to say start with 'b' :) Some might think I'm a silly over-eager mummy believing that you really do know the difference between all these things, but I do know you know - you've shown me :) Other things that you like that you can't really say yet are trees, dogs, cats (did you say "meow" yesterday when you saw the cat?), and lights. I love seeing you squeeze your eyes shut to discover how the world magically disappears when you close them, and your amused laugh and the sparkle in your eyes when you open them again are some of the little things I will remember fondly.

You love playing "peekaboo", and you are so fun to play catching with. You also can't resist combing your hair when you see the comb! Maybe because your hair can get quite messy cos it grows so quickly! You've had 4 haircuts in one year! You're starting to eat from a spoon yourself, but often make a (huge) mess still :) Three days before your birthday you also decided you needed a new party trick and started walking! And it was amazing to me that in a few days, your walking skills just improved more and more. From 3 steps, to 5 steps, to a few tiles, to across the entire hallway!

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For Asher's birthday we organised a baby party in the morning, and had a gathering for family in the afternoon. I thought it would be nice for Asher's friends to be over for his birthday, instead of just 'big people'. Since babies are most alert and lively in the morning, we arranged for the baby party between 930-12, strategically placed after his breakfast and before his nap :) The afternoon sessionon started at 2pm so that Asher could have a proper rest, and take his lunch too. No nap = cranky baby, so nap time is important to plan around!!

For the baby party Josiah (plus Joanne L. and Jian Ming), Aidan (plus Terrence and Sharon), Emma (plus Clarence), and Jo Claire (plus Joanne S.) came. The little tots looked like they had a good time playing together - even if sometimes it was more like playing side by side :) Children know no strangers, and everyone was a friend. They got along so well that Josiah even generously shared his drum...and his credit card! Yep, the little boy has 1C already ;) Guess which baby was eager to take his credit card? Emma! Okok, I'm playing to stereotypes when I shouldn't. It wasn't just the girl, Aidan seemed quite happy to borrow Josiah's credit card too.

We made pancakes and cupcakes for the parents, while the babies had home-baked baby cakes. I had experimented to create a baby-friendly cake which all of Asher's friends could eat regardless of how old they were. Most baby cake recipes I had seen usually included sugar and eggs, but I'm not keen on adding sugar to his food yet, and not all babies have started on whole eggs. I used apples in lieu of sugar, and omited eggs altogether. My first attempt yielded something more like kueh, and Asher found the texture to be totally disagreeable. He didn't even give it a chance! He took it in his hand, and deciding that it was too gooey/sticky for his liking, he proceeded to throw it across the room - making very clear his opinion on that first experiment. To be fair to myself, the taste wasn't half bad, and in fact Anya and Aidan quite happily ate the cake. But what's the point of having a birthday cake Asher won't eat? So I tweaked the proportions and experiment number 2 was a success! It was definitely more muffin like, and Asher seemed to like it quite a lot, much to my joy! So that was the cake we served up on Asher's birthday, and the babies all took to it - yay! I'll include the recipe in a separate post :)

Besides baby cakes we had a range of snacks for the little ones, which came in handy mid-morning when almost all of them decided they were peckish and needed a snack.

I enjoyed the morning session and found it entertaining just to watch the children crawl/toddle around and interact. Hopefully all Asher's guests (and parents) had a good time too!

Baby party favors

Aidan & Josiah checking out the scooter

Breaking for snacks

Round-chair discussion

I love Emma's 'yoga' tights!

Chilling on the playmat

Jon surrounded by babies :)











JC & mummy

Are you dancing Asher? :)

Group shot! See Emma crawling away? :)

The afternoon was definitely a more adult affair, and Sharon (who had stayed on from the morning) and I made a similar observation - adults are noisier! Besides Asher and Aidan, the third 'A' cousin, Anya, came for the party too. She was supposed to have come in the morning, but was down with a slight fever so stayed home to rest. It was good to see our relatives and to have them share in this little, happy occasion :)




Grandpa Quah & Grandpa Nair with the grandchildren

The fighting for toys has begun!

They decide to focus on different toys :)

Enjoying Malay food for lunch

Baby cakes on the left, adult cake on the right

Birthday paparazzi

I like this photo. He is just tall/short enough to walk through my legs while standing straight :) I'm sure there will come a time when I'll need him to sit for me to talk with him eye-to-eye!

The next morning was cold and rainy - perfect for staying in to open presents. But Asher was more interested in the bags the gifts came in! The one thing he refused to let go of was his 'happy birthday' balloon, which he carried with him everywhere he went :)






























Finally got him to open some presents - this one is from his teachers!













I'm not sure, but maybe Asher had an inkling that that day was a special day, even if he did not quite know its significance. In any case, I just hope he had fun playing and being with friends and people who love him.

Asher, happy birthday! Mummy and Daddy love you no end! And we pray that the next year will only get better and better :)