Toss the salad

Lo Hei season has begun!

We started yesterday at Nya-nya's house and just had another one at Mildred's.

Spent yesterday morning with Sasha and nursing my cold while Ben, Wendy and Nick brought Nat to Vivo for lunch.

In the evening we went to Sunny Spring for a steamboat dinner with the Sees. Gigi scored points by walking all the way to the kitchen to present Nya Nya oranges.


Aunty Lee Eng's steamboat stock was power, brewed for hours with chicken broth, dried scallops, Chinese cabbage, sharks fin cartilage, mushrooms etc.





Sasha and Nat wore matching dresses made in HCM the last trip but it was hard to get a picture of them together. All evening Gigi tried to poop and would clench and grunt at various spots of the house then get distressed when someone distracted her. I told everyone to leave her alone and give her privacy and she appreciated that, coming over to rest her head on my lap.





Uncle Thomas and Aunty Sharon came over and Nat and Gigi proclaimed at the end of the evening that they liked Uncle Thomas, that's high praise coming from those two!


This morning we went for mass, bumped into an acquaintance of Nick whom we saw last week. He and his family just moved into the Pinnacle so I think we will see them every week if we attend St Teresa's 10.30 am mass. They have 2 sons close to Nat's age.

Had an early McDonald's lunch at Springleaf Tower before heading to Baba's house for CNY visiting. Both my daughters pooped there, hope that brings Baba luck. Aunty Irene made Nat draw 4-D numbers!


The evening was spent at Mildred's. Eugene, Sylvia, Cato and Cara joined us for dinner.



At first Cara and Nat ignored each other but by the end of the evening they had warmed up to each other and Cara didn't want to leave. Sylvia had an outfit from Gingersnaps for Nat's birthday and also passed her a pretty pair of ballet pumps from Zara that Cara can't fit into anymore, even though she's almost 3 months younger!

Happy birthday my munchkin!

Woke up this morning feeling like I had been hit by a bus, body all aching and nose blocked. Of all days to be sick, on Nat’s actual birthday.

Nick took her out to Underwater World with Ma, Lita, Wendy and Sasha, I bailed on them.



However I felt bad for missing part of her special day and wanted to try and meet for lunch. So I hitched a ride to Vivo with the Dopes after they had brunch but Nick never got our messages to come to Vivo for lunch and didn’t answer the phone till it was too late and he claims he had no missed calls. Mummy also didn’t bring her phone.

In the end, I bought a blueberry maple cake from Cedele and said to meet back at our place. We didn’t cut the cake till evening, We had a simple dinner and I attempted an old cucumber and pork rib soup, turned out ok, but a bit bland…too much water methinks.




Nat didn’t really eat her cake, just picked at the blueberries and almonds. A really low key birthday but then she already had a big party. Time to start planning Sasha’s birthday!

Natalie is 3!

How fast they grow, Nat is officially 3!

We’ve been telling her she’s a big girl already and so she should behave like one but sometimes we can’t help but manja her though she tries to assert some independence.



She’s going through a vain phase, insisting on choosing her daily outfits, sometimes changing 4-5 times a day. She’ll try clothes on and toss them aside if not satisfied. She’s very particular about what she wants to wear, but sometimes her top and leggings will clash and I’ll insist she wear something else.

But she can be stubborn and will resist any attempts to change her so once or twice she has stepped out of the house uncoordinated…oh the horror!

She’s even changed in the middle of the night! Once this past month, when I went to routinely change her diaper before I slept, I found it had leaked a little so I changed her pants to a red Elmo one that was draped over her bed.

Wendy told me the next morning that Nat woke up sometime later and scrounged around the cupboard for a new pair to change, she didn’t want to wear Elmo pants that night! Think it was at 3 am. And the same thing happened to Mummy when Nat stayed at Membina once.

She has gotten used to sleeping in her own bed and has realised it’s more comfortable than squeezing with us. She surrounds herself with plenty of Care Bears so no more visits in the middle of the night to climb onto our bed, phew.



But because she’s a restless sleeper, I’ve taken Sasha at night on a more permanent basis so Wendy can tend to Nat if she wakes up, which is still almost daily that she asks for milk at 4am or so. Seriously need to cut the habit and get her off the bottle too, let me settle the potty training first.

That is making some progress, she doesn’t like pooping in it but is warming up to peeing in it and my aim is to lose the diapers during the day by mid-March.

I need to wean her off the afternoon nap as well, I find she’s staying up much later, she’s been averaging 11 pm for bedtime so I think she doesn’t need the nap anymore.


At 3, she’s just over 12 kg and has developed a fondness for chocolates, particularly M&Ms which she just calls MMs. She’s discovered almonds and loves them.

I am getting her to get more comfortable with holding writing instruments, she can’t write anything yet but she did draw this face on a doodle board recently and I was so proud!


She is cheeky, there was once she asked to go ‘Parnenon’ and I couldn’t figure out what she meant till she said the house in Australia. And I clarified, ‘You mean apartment?’ and she affirmed it. But knowing the correct word now, she’ll still say, “I want to go Parnenon!’ and give a devilish smile.



While she’s walking more instead of insisting one of us carry her when we’re out, she can still be koala bearish. She is less shy when meeting people though and can be extremely polite but only with Gigi i.e , ‘Excuse me Gigi, can you move over there please?’, she doesn’t practice this with us!

They fight all the time but kiss and make up in an instant. Together, they’ve taken to piling up pillows on the bed and then flopping on them, calling it a pillow castle. They also like dressing like princesses and pretending to put make up, and do each other’s hair.



Gigi has regressed in terms of her pooping, she’s back to going once in 3 days and while she doesn’t scream as much, her distress is still visible.


I am getting used to her calling me Mummy Mita, in fact I quite like it. She knows her colours and alphabets, shapes and numbers and her speech is a lot more advanced than other girls her age.



Her favourite singer is Katy Perry and she can sing along to some songs. Influenced no doubt by her parents’ taste in music, as is Nat, who likes to fall asleep to ‘I’m Yours’ by Jason Mraz. Whatever happened to good old lullabies?

Chinese New Year 2011

Today was the first day of Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit and as usual, we carted ourselves over to Amah's house where the rest of the family visit over lunchtime.


My dilemma was in deciding what new outfit to wear as the clothes I had designated all somehow didn't fit properly when I tried them on again last night. In the end I went with a Trina Turk green printed dress and threw on a pink necklace so I could match my daughters somewhat. Both Nat and Sasha wore green and pink floral dresses, my favourite colour combination!

Nat got to meet her cousins whom she only sees once a year, including Julia's 3 boys - Joshua, Gabriel and Ian. Ian is the same age as Nat, older by less than a month, but he's practically a whole head taller!



The older folks seemed quite taken with Sasha, especially Nick's eldest uncle - I suppose because he has 3 grandsons. Sasha was a regular social butterfly, not complaining at all when various aunties and uncles carried her. I heard a number of comments about how she looks just like Nick.

We managed to see almost all of Mildred's side except for Uncle Steven and family, and of course Uncle Alvin and company who are in Darwin. Because everyone congregates at Amah's, there's hardly any visiting to do each CNY.



As hard as I tried, it was impossible to get a proper shot of me and the girls or a family shot, they each took turns ignoring the photographers. These were the best we managed.




Came home to nap and in the evening we headed to Membina, Swana tapau-ed food from a tze char stall at Zion Road and we were entertained by Nat and Gigi, who hammed it up for the camera.

Ananya's "Bawah Block" Purple Party!

Today was the eve of Chinese New Year and also Ananya's 2nd birthday.

Kavi had a purple-themed party because Ananya loves Barney and in her invite called it a 'bawah block' party because she used the multi-purpose space next to her block. Nat and Sasha wore white dresses with purple floral prints, a stark contrast to the rest who came in various shades of violet.




Loved Riley's outfit, she reminded me of a Ribena berry somehow!




The kids ran around the playground first before breaking to eat and play games. We couldn't stay long because of the reunion dinner planned at AMK and left midway.



Dinner was a traditional steamboat affair and as usual there was too much food. We told Mildred next year she had to cut back by at least 30%!

10 month old Pumpkin Pie

Gosh, they grow so fast! In the blink of an eye, Sasha is 10 months and I'd better hustle and start planning her 1st birthday!




She's started being selective about who carries her, she's gotten quite attached to Wendy which is inevitable since she spends most of the day with her. She went through a spell of bursting into tears whenever Kevin picked her up, probably because he likes to give her a fright.

At her last check up just after she turned 9 months, her weight was about 8+kg and she measured 70.2 cm. While everything was normal, I did raise the topic of her large head with the nurse, who assured me that circumference-wise it was consistent with her percentile and that it wasn't really large, just not rounded which is what I've always known but Mildred needs that assurance from a medical professional!

Just recently she claimed Sasha's fingers were blue-black from holding her bottle too tight (a bit ridiculous since Sasha holds her bottle very slackly, if she even holds at all!). She also questioned Sasha's fingers being flexed when sleeping, that it wouldn't lie flat when she tried to put it around the pillow and wondered if she had crooked arms! Meanwhile, I put that down to not being in a deep sleep!



Nat is sleeping in her own bed now so I've taken on Sasha at night on a more permanent basis because if both her and Nat are in the same room, Wendy would get no sleep at all! Nat's still pretty restless and asks for milk in the middle of the night and Sasha is noisy when she gets stuck trying to turn!

She likes to stroke the bedsheets or pillow as she's falling asleep, just like Nat, as if inspecting the threadcount! She averages 8.30 pm for bedtime, gets a feed in her sleep at 12.30 am or 1am, and doesn't look for milk again till about 6.30 am. And instead of crying, she'll just quietly stand up in the playpen and tap me, or pull my blanket.


Sometimes she goes back to sleep, sometimes she doesn't. She likes to snuggle up and I'll put her in between me and Nick and try to pat her back to sleep but she'll just sit up and clap her hands, waiting to play. Other times she'll kneel and lean over pinching our faces. That's when she's handed over to Wendy so we can get another hour of sleep!

When she's awake and there are people around, she hates to be placed in the playpen, screaming her head off the moment you set her down. She also resists the stroller and high chair, needing to be distracted before she gets strapped in.

She waves and claps on demand, she can also 'stamp' her foot when you sing "If You're Happy", but it looks more like she's shaking her leg. She can point to her head if you ask where it is, her crawl is kind of sideways, and she keeps gnawing on her fingers!


We blend her food still, this times the vegetables are mixed with rice or pasta. She's started on fish and so far so good, no allergies. She loved cherries when she tried them the first time, the juice trickled down her chin like blood, and she took sizable bites with her gums.


She's a happy baby and her latest trick is laughing/panting like a hyena. She can also say "ma-ma" and lately 'ba-ba-ba' but I think she wants the pacifier when she says that!