When negotiations do not work..try compliments instead

Little Ms Negotiator

Bean loves to negotiate. when I tell her she gets 2 more grapes, she will say "3 more mummy, 3 more". When I tell her that's the last song on the iPad, she says "2 more songs mummy". when i tell her it's bath time in 2 minutes, she goes "5 more minutes!". when i say time for bed, she says "1st I sing to animals (all her soft toys on her bed), then I play pocolini (her leapfrog caterpillar), then I sleep"

Today while feeding her her dinner (she loves pasta nights!), she asked me to read to her. after about 3 books and lots of exaggerated acting from me, I said enough. as usual she went, "just 1 more book mummy, just 1" and I said " no sophie, I am tired" and then she looked at me earnestly and said "please mummy..sweet pie". LOL..she picked that up as I always call her my sweetie pie. naturally she won and I continued reading.

as she is past midway her terrible twos , here's what she has definitely picked up from her peers at school :
- a GIANT "NOOO" with arms folded and a huffy look on her face
- lie on floor and kicking legs when she does not get her way
- playing with saliva (hmm, maybe this one she is regressing and following mini bean)

a slight change in her sleeping style - she now sleeps on her pillow and hugging not just bunny but the big mickey and her bolster. she still sleeps on her tummy and we get to see the occasionally butt up in the air sleep pose.

when she reaches home from school and if i am not home, she will call me and says "hello mummy, where are you now?" and then "I want you to come home now" and then "I want mummy to buy me something". that something can be anything ranging from food (usually chocs) to toys. most times i just bring out something from the kitchen - thankfully she is easy to please.

our friend Deb recently posted about the Marshmellow test - the secret of self control. she mentioned that the test is best done on kids ages 4 and above..I was curious to see how bean will fare. so far I have tested her 3 times on random occasions with chocolate and each time, she has patiently waited, forgoing instant gratification for a bigger "reward". i did not follow the exact instructions of the test which was that the child be left in a room with the treat alone. maybe that would yield a different result? I should definitely try it the right way.

My colleague asked me today how's life with 2 kids - I gave her the first word that came to my mind "tiring!" but added on "but I love it!"..yes I do miss my ME time - I was feeling really sick over the weekend with flu, headache and body aches - yet there was still the twice a night feeds and bean's constant "I want you to play with me mummy". But hearing their sweet laughter and cute replies along with the hugs and kisses (and smells - snifflelous is what jin calls mini bean) - 110% worth it!


cheeky, exasperating, noisy BUT i love her to bits!


Our Little Ms Snifflelous


My sweetie pie and me


Mini bean's serious face

She flips, she flips, o baby

At 4 months, mini bean is doing the flips..forward and backward -with much ease too. we have to keep reminding ourselves not to leave her alone on our bed or sofa incase she does a double flip and falls. unfortunately, no pictures of her flipping cos everytime i swipe out the camera, the little one turns all camera shy *sigh*

I do however have pictures of the 2 sisters..i like to say from the nose up, they could pass off as twins. but hayley has definitely inherited her daddy's chin



We spent one saturday morning hanging out at BG as I wanted to let Bean try out a ELC bubble blower she received as a gift from Cheryl like a whole year back.






with bean b4 she went to watch the ugly duckling with Jin


a typical scene at meal times these days

and the award goes to...

Me!! for surviving my 1st week back at work after loooong 4 months :). in line with oscar week, this would have been my acceptance speech.

Category : Best survivor in their 1st week back at work after child delivery

wow! thank you. what an honour! to be in the same category with you angelina (jolie) and still win! (maybe cos you have like an army to help you and wait,..you dont really need to get back to work do you?) ..There are so many people to thank..God, for giving me mental alertness and patience to get through morning traffic and the ton of terrible drivers on the road. My darling hubby, jin - for waking up to help out with the 4am feeds. my in laws for staying with us and helping to watch the household so that I could be out of the house 10 hours a day with a peace of mind. My helper for taking such good care of bean and mini bean while i am out..and the nanny for giving mini bean lots of love (and spoiling her silly by carrying her non stop!)..and and...(backgroud music comes on : twinkle twinkle little stars)...and my manager at work for being understanding and letting me get off work travel..the cleaner aunty at work for keeping the toilets clean so i can do all my pumping in there and catch that 5 minute cat nap. thank you all, I love you..you guys rock!!

February flew by...

arghh! can't believe i start work again tomorrow..where did my 4 months of maternity go?! sigh.
Feb was just one of those months I wished would never end..we did so much and there was so much more to do. Here's a tea-spoonful of what we did (CNY gets it's own blog post) :

Decorating a valentine's day cake for daddy

Mummy decided to do some decoration on Bean ;)

The piece of art by Sophie-angelo

We went back in time and rode the pink dinasaurs @bedok reservior park

Bean started tracing alphabets and letters..off to a pretty good start I must say

we enjoyed Thursdays @ Tiong Bahru Arts & Crafts

Played hide and seek on rainy days

sobs..i am sure going to miss the two kids..hayley's generous smiles and yes, bean's endless "why?"

Dim sum land with the kids

I wanted to do a quick family trip b4 starting back work in March. We choose HK partly bcos jin's parents have never been there and also cos I wanted to take Bean to Disneyland b4 she turned 3 (and have to pay entrance fees :p)

we found out it was NOT easy traveling with a baby and toddler. everything had to be done at ultra slow pace as we had to slot in hayley's feeding times, bean's nap times and my bm pumping times. Jin's parents were awesome - very patient with bean and super helpful with hayley. Although it was a short 5 days trip and made shorter by having only 1 key activity a day - i think we all had fun. (but have to say we were happy to come home and catch up on sleep!)

Bean still fits into the airport trolleys!

Enjoying her chicken pie meal and slurping orange jelly juice

Hayley catching a nap in her own "airbed"

1st stop : Macau - enjoying a meal at a cha chan tang @ City of Dreams

CNY deco along the streets in Macau

Hayley's 1st time in a stroller!

2nd stop : HK - view of the harbour from our suite at YMCA Salisbury

Bean and her Ah Ma sharing a rub nose moment

our mini zorro taking a nap while we ate lunch

Victoria Peak

Yay..here we are at the Happiest Place on Earth ;)

What's Disney w/out a family pix with M&M Mouse? not sure if it was worth the 1 hour wait in line though :p

Bean and daddy got to sit all the rides

She loved driving the car even though she could not see the road. Jin stepped on the accelerator for her.

Bean dancing on the bench while grandparents waited in line for photo shoot.

only waited 5 minutes to get a pix with Goofy and Pluto!

Hayley looking gorgeous ;)

An exhausted Bean with her Mickey bought by grandparents

Bye bye HK...daddy says no more trips with the kids till they are like 7..haha :D

Hayley @ 3 months, 3 weeks old

6.6kg, 61cm

It's such a joy to wake up each morning to a happy smiley baby. Hayley flashes her toothless smiles to anyone who will just give her the time of the day - she happily coos and "talks" to us when we respond to her smiles.

A rundown of her days :

6.30am - wakes up for her milk and usually quite contented to lie back in bed and watch her musical mobile..sometimes falls back asleep

7.30am - if parents can drag themselves out of bed ("wake up sleepy heads" as bean will tell us!), hayley gets brought into our big bed for some morning chit chat and songs

8.30am - a whole hour of yakkity yak yak tires the little one..she starts fretting and we usually put her down for a cat nap.

9am - Cat nap over - drinks milk (140 to 150ml per feed now)

10am - morning bath time - she loves! actually I love giving her the baths too..even though I get peed on 3 out of 7 days :p. after bath, she naps again

1130am - milk milk milk and then..zzz

Afternoons - she is mostly awake, partly cos big sis is home and making a LOT of noise

6pm-ish - milk and starts to wind down..can see she is sleepy but still wants to ke-poh

7.30pm - gets between 60 to 100ml milk top up and usually falls asleep drinking.

12am/2am - some nights we wake her for a dreamfeed at 12am b4 we hit the sack but we noticed that for some reason if we do that, she will still wake up at 3ish for another feed. wherelse, if we do not wake her for dreamfeed, she wakes herself up at 2.30am, drinks and falls back to sleep till 6.30am...hmmph.

we have a part time aunty to come to the house to take care of her - aunty nelly loves her.."damn cute, damn cute" is what she says about 30 times a day :)

damn cute damn cute

daddyyy..this is NOT what mummy meant when she asked you to keep an eye on me!

..and today i drank milk! and slept! and pooed..and drank milk..

uber chubs!

Milk To Hayley

Our 3 mth old little one has been taking 130ml of milk per feed since she was 1 plus month. the amount has not gone up just bcos she does not finish the additional 10ml when we try toping up the milk to 140ml. I find it interesting that she takes about 15 to 30 minutes to finish what I could finish in 2 gulps (10 seconds).

She loves to savour her milk - most feeds, she will drink all the way till the remaining 60 ml(which is like a small mouthful of liquid for adults) ..then she takes a break - rejecting the bottle. But if she does not drink finish that 60 ml, her sleep is unsettled combined with lots of hand sucking resulting to very wet mittens. Give the girl her last 60ml and we get a happily contented full baby who will close her eyes , droop her head and no amount of talking, rocking, patting or noise will wake her :)