The crying game

So the little bean has taken up a new hobby...it's called crying. she fake cries when she does not get the toy she wants or when she's not happy we don't give in to her every demand. The cries are soo fake so we tend to ignore her..but then she comes to you, and says : mummy, sophie crying..

?!

and i also realised recently what a daddy's girl she is..one morning she demanded from jin : daddee I WANT Nai Nai..so jin promptly brings her her milk..and she immediately coos : xie xie daddyy..ai ni daddyyy (this is without any prompting from us!)

later that morning, she turned to me and said : Mummy, I want corn flakes. so i go get her some and she just answers : Ummp

?!

Happenings at home

Feb was an extremely busy month. we hosted 2 cny gatherings, michiko fell sick and nephew michael came over everyday since mom Pat had make an emergency trip back to US to help her mom.




we held 2 parties the day before CNY ended. The ladies and their handsome halfs joined us for yee sang and a catered meal from Golden Pillow 933. It was the 1st time seeing Mad since she got preggy and she was looking good with her 4 month preggy belly.




That same night, we had a feast with a home cooked meal by karen, ML and Li Mei. the buddha jumped over wall soup was the highlight..such a yummy soup! lin supplied the yee sang and we made nyonya prawns. Later, the girls played MJ while i hopped between serving them tea and watching cutie ryker sleeping peacefully on our bed. The guys watched a silly show by Nicholas Cage to pass time.


michiko fell really sick that very day too. she complained of kidney pains and thought she had lung cancer as she was coughing. such drama. I spent 3 hours with her at 2 clinics that saturday morning and turns out, she just had a normal cough. But the doctor advised that she go for an ultrasound for her kidney as he could not diagnose her sickness. happy to post that one ultrasound at SGH, 2 GP visits, $350 bucks later, michiko is all well and given a clean bill of health (suspected UTI which 2 courses of anti biotics took care of). A week after she recovered, we celebrated Michiko's 31st bday with a yummy choc cake from Lana Cake.





Michael Lim's daily visits. I think I got a preview of life with 2 kids..the constant screaming, the tantrums and meltdowns, the pushing, biting, grabbing, time-outs and of course, the occasional hugging and loving (esp at the end of the day - yes, that's how long it takes for the 2 kiddos to warm up to each other). On one hand, Michael is such a sweet boy..he listens, reads on his own, understands instructions to the core. On the other hand, that boy just won't eat. It takes us an hour to get him to finish half his meal..some days when we are tired, we cheat and just give in to his peanut butter sandwich request which he eats on his own and finishes :). Knowing how much Pat misses her little boy, we update her with emails 2-3 times a week and get michael to talk on the phone with her as often as we can.

One sunday night, we had an impromptu wine cheese gathering as jin was craving some cheese and me some yummy geruztraminer. WH,. IZ and HW gamely came over to help us satisfy our cravings.

besides the above, we have been busy planning for our upcoming short weekend breaks. Managed to get jin to agree to take me to Borobudor..woohoo. Mom's going to come babysit for this trip and end of May when we head to Ho Chi Minh, it will be in laws turn to babysit.yay!

Bean's latest entertaining words : I WANT...I want cao mei (strawberry). I want MY choot choot (pacifier). I want Bread. hehee..makes me laugh :)

Mummy Time

The things bean do which melts my heart...so we tell her there's sleeping time, poo poo time, bathing time, eating time and playground time. Today on the way back from the playground with Michiko, bean tells michiko - Mummy Time :) I love how her little mind works..everything is so black and white and yes, seeing mummy again and wanting to play with mummy constitutes as mummy time!

Lets see, what else has the 20 month old toddler been entertaining me with? ah yes, her love for the moon or yue liang as she sometimes calls it. Every evening, she will ask to see the moon so we go for a quick walk and look out for Mr Moon..and the other day, we were walking back after spotting the moon and wishing him good night, another guy walked past us to the direction we just came from. So bean does her usual : Hi Uncle and followed by Uncle walk. so I say: yes, uncle walking away. and Bean goes : Uncle walk, go see moon :D..again, i love how her little mind sees things. so clear, so simple, so pure!

The funniest was the other day when jin did something annoying and i said in a really exasperated tone : HOneeyyyyyy and low behold, bean went : Honeeeyyyy..in the same exasperated tone..that really made me laugh.

no one ever told me that when you have a child, you also get a comic relief for free :)

A roaring Chinese New Year

Had a blast celebrating CNY in Penang and KL. Bean charmed everyone with her sweet smiles and silent Gong Xi Gong Xi (hand actions only :)

With ye ye and ma ma

1st lo hei of the tiger year!

bean sharing mini oranges with her great grandma

love these old peranakan houses with tall doors

bonding with her ma ma

Penang was crazy hot and poor bean had to sit in the outside toilet..she was sweating buckets..needless to say, no poo poo came out :p

Managed to meet up with ex-hp-ians

The Ng clan - dad's side

bean cooling off at her po-po's car porch

The Ng clan - Mom's side

having fun with Po Po

Gong Hei Fatt Choy from bean and mummy

A Walk Down the Aisle . . .

Jin's cousin, SM wanted bean to be a flower girl at her wedding..despite my sceptism that bean would walk more than 5 steps in a straight line, we decided why not (after cautioning aunty sm :)). So bean had her first flower girl "assignment" and we were off to Penang the weekend before we flew off to California.

The original plan was to have Bean hold her 2.5-yr old cousin Michael's hand but in the end, think we made a wise decision to have the best man's hand instead. I armed the best man (forgot his name but he was cute!) with the secret weapon to keep bean in check i.e. a box of sunmaid raisins and with the treats in hand, he did a pretty good job coaxing bean

down the dining aisle walk.

The only (small) slip was when halfway through, bean decided to take a 10-second squating break... guess she must have gotten tired. Never mind, Mr. Best Man managed to coax her with more raisins and viola, bean soldiered on and fulfilled her duty..what a champ! :)

with mummy b4 her big debut

daddy's girl :)

ah ma and ah kong all dressed up and looking good

lets hold hands!

eh, can share some raisins or not?

radiant bride and groom

and the party begins with say han chek

The wedding was held at the historical 19th century Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. I was amazed at how huge the mansion was and can't help but to envy how well the rich people lived in the past. High ceilings ornately decorated, huge airy courtyards and halls, tons of big rooms (each the size of a small HDB flat), retro/old style furnishings - we got a fun dose of nostalgia from this stay :)

some pix taken during lunch...



and i like this pix of bean with her grandparents at gurney drive..very serene!

Fun in the snow

This year, we managed to organised 6 families to get chip in to rent a beautiful cabin at Lake Tahoe. Jin did a great job finding the cabin and lyn helped out with the boring admin arrangements. The cabin had 2 floors with 3 bedrooms on each floor, snooker table, huge kitchen with an island (my dream is to own a home with an island kitchen!), outdoor jacuzzi hot tub and a steam room. It was just the right size to house all 12 adults and 9 kids ( 3 babies) and a little dog.

we skied, had snowball fights, took the kids sledding and here's an attempt at a poorly constructed snowman.

Tom & Jerry

Lyn and I were really excited at the thought of the two little cousins entertaining and playing with each other ..how wrong we were!

Sophie seemed to enjoy taunting her older cousin while Ryan could not stand her playing with his toys so she got pushed and smacked..like a few times a day. Days were filled with No No , stop pushing, no smacking, no biting (sophie's latest nonsense) and time outs followed by tears :p

Despite the above, I think sophie missed her kor kor lots after we left ;)

Here are the two of them at 18 months and 2 years respectively.