Father's Day

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO AH GONG, DADDY AND FRANCINE'S DADDY

It's Father's Day today. There are 3 'fathers'(Ah gong, daddy and marcus) in our family. We had high tea buffet at Holiday Inn Atrium (old Concorde Hotel), Melting Pot Cafe. There is a kid corner at the cafe and the babies (Yu Chen and Francine) enjoyed themselves there. According to ah gong (it's auntie anna's off day today so ah gong is the temporary babysitter), yu chen was behaving like a road bully. In order to climb up the ladder of the slide, he pushed whatever, whoever was blocking his path. We took our own sweet time and spent 3 hours eating. The food was ok and the speed that they replenish the food was really slow but the price was reasonable.

Milestones

it's been a long time since i last blogged. I was really tied down with my project. Only recently did i manage to catch the sun when i return home from office. For the past 3 months my project team had dinner at around 8/9pm and going home around 9/10pm during most of the weeknites. Now that my project is nearing end, I finally had the time to plan for a short Taiwan trip and also yu chen's birthday party.

Yu Chen will be 1 year old next month. So far, he had been able to achieve the following all thanks to ah ma's coaching...
1. Wave bye bye
2. Blow kisses
3. Plant kisses on faces
4. Comb his hair
5. Pretend to talk into the phone
6. Do the 'no more' action
7. Do the 'twinkle twinkle little stars' action
8. Stand steadily
9. Stand from a squatting position
10.Walk steadily with support.
11.Walk 2/3 steps without support.
12. Feed himself with hands.
13.Hold and drink from milk bottle himself.
14. Point at things and people.

As for yu chen's birthday party, so far only managed to book the function room. Still haven booked buffet, cake, toys, buy his present, get decorations, send invites, create his 1st year CD...Oh no, better get all these done before I leave for Taiwan.

Recently Yu En has been biting her finger nails. Her daddy had tried all ways to make her stop this bad habbit including barred her from going swimming, beat her hand, show her his angriest face but to no avail. I even told her the story of how the worms will get into her stomach to grow there and then will come out from her mouth and ears but also no use. Everyweek, she will run away once her daddy ask to check and cut her nails. Do we have to resort to put axe oil/chilli on her fingernails just like what our elders did last time?

En En's New Piano

En's new piano arrived today. It's high time we get her a piano in order to train her fingers which is not possible with keyboard. We had a hard time deciding which model and brand to buy for her as PIANOS ARE EXPENSIVE! We are actually not sure how serious or interested is en into playing piano. Everytime we asked her if she likes playing piano, she would just answered 'yes' but without the enthusiasm in her tone. But she is quite hardworking in her practice. Since it's still early to guage her interest, we decided on a cheap model, WEBER, an American brand manufactured in China from Cristofori. Even a cheap model easily costs us $3K+ We'll switch to a better model once she is into the higher grades. The other models which we had considered are Kawai and Yamaha. A second hand model of Kawai or Yamaha can easily hit $4k+. Expensive right? Now one of my enjoyable moments is to listen to my dear daughter playing a tune on the piano.

The Terrorist

best time to disturb jie jie(while practising her keyboard)! here I come!

Shopping Day

today is really an eventful day for both kids. we were out shopping for the whole day. our first destination was vivo city. we had lunch at hogs breath where yu chen enjoyed the yummy whipped potato. then we proceeded to white cafe to have desert while witing for leng leng ah yee and ah ma. the shopping started at giant where auntie leng leng ah yee did her grocery shopping. after that we left for alexandra ikea to get a bed for yu en and yu chen. we managed to buy a pull out bed for them which cost around $200+. yp was very against the idea of a bunk bed cos he could predict that yu chen would get more and more 'giat' by the day and one of these days he would fall while climbing up the upper deck of the bunk bed. everybody got what they wanted and headed for a sumptous dinner. dinner was settled at nan hua chang fish head steamboat. when we got home, everyone was dead beat and slept straight away after washing up.

I Only Want A Smile

Play Yard

it has been 3 mths since i rented a toy for yu chen. yesterday, i managed to rent a play yard and a toy piano from www.rent-a-toy.com for him and 2 computer games for yu en(in case she feels that i am unfair). yp kept saying that i am wasting money. but in fact i am trying to save money as kids will get tired of playing the same toy very easily and the rental fee for the play yard is only $20 per month. moreover, the play yard will come in handy as i do not have to look out for yu chen now that he is crawling everywhere. proved that i was right. this morning i finally had the chance to enjoy my breakfast and take my time in reading my newspaper as yu chen played with his jie jie in the yard. even yu en likes to play in it, she pretended that it is her mini garden. hmm...now considering whether to get one for him. the only thing is it occupies lot of space, making the sitting room a bit cramp.