20091206 mommy's thoughts

Not much update from the last 'mommy's thoughts' (occupational hazard makes me feel like putting '' for the ' after mommy, but hey, this is no programming).

Kate has just completed her year end performance, as seen from the previous post, and its fun to see her enjoying herself so much.

We had a meet-the-parent session with her teacher, and the progress was OK.  She is talking much, as can be seen by her teacher and us.  Less echoing maybe, or maybe I am just too confused to  know what is echoing or what is endless repetition (mommy go bomp bomp (bath), daddy watch tv, kathleen play(s) with lego, she would chant on the way home everynight).

At my mom's place, she is driving me crazy as she refuses her dinner.  Sometimes just like 5 spoonfuls.  Sometimes, NIL.  I ended up losing my temper every night.  Papa cannot stand it, and took over and fared better.  He threatened her 'if you don't eat, you cannot go home', and she will say 'I eat'.  Gosh.  On better days, she ate like what was half her serving when she first started having dinner at my mother's place.  But at least she is eating (though I will not have the heart to threaten her at every spoon).

After 3 months in CC, she also started to eat abit of a certain fruit.  Which makes me very happy.  I hope that she will continue her progress and eat more variety and bigger servings.

She is still not toilet trained in poo business, and is still wearing diapers while sleeping and when going out. 

She had learnt all the alphabets in school, but does not seemed to recognise them much.  Then under the recommendation of mommy blogger tamarind, I got the Leapfrog's Letter Factory and let her watch it.  This gal insisted on watching it almost everyday (which drive papa crazy because it means no TV for him).  And then one day about 2 weeks later, she brought her magnetic letters nearer to the main door (away from the tv), and then I noticed her picking up a letter randomly and then said the letter's name and its pronounciation.  Eg, she would pick up J, and then she would say 'J says 'jej'', the way it was spoken in the DVD.  After that, she progressed to reading out capital letters on signboards, and books (see armadillo video a few blogs down), and now can even read out small letters most of the time.  I am impressed. :)  I am getting the next DVD in the series, and hope that it will help her in learning phonics, and later reading.

 Her mandarin, on the other hand, is almost non-existent, even though Chinese is being taught in school.  So it seems that mommy has to start cracking her brain again, and worse come to worse,might just send her to enrichment class next year or the year after that (definitely before primary 1).

Back at home, she seemed to understand more things than ever.  My back pain turned out to be a bulging disc (confirmed after a MRI scan), and doctor's advice, among other things, is not to carry heavy things.  So after explaining her a few rounds, nowadays most of time she would understand, saying 'Mommy back pain pain, cannot carry' though sometimes she still demanded to be carried, especially when she is tired or sleepy.  And on another day, when I took out a swiss roll from the plastic bag for her breakfast, a worried her go through the plastic bag and then said 'no mian bao (for) mommy'.  And on other day, on the way, she suddenly said (without eye contact) 'I love you' and then added 'I love you mommy'. So sweet. :).  Of course she is not up to par with her peers yet (one of them said recently, 'my por por can cook, but mommy and dada cannot cook' which send all of us into laughing fits), so she will need alot of practices.  And recently she even know how to say 'errrrrrr' when she is expected to respond but she need more time to think and phrase  her words. :)

Oh, and now she know how to take out her DVD, on the DVD player, put the DVD inside and enjoy her show.  :)  She also learnt how to operate the PSP way before I did (personally speaking, I disapprove of her playing with PSP cos of the harm that the repetitive actions will bring) 
And lastly, she is now 3  years old.  :)

2009 Child Care year end concert

Today is a exciting  day for papa and mommy as it is Kate's year end concert.  Her last year end concert (under her playgroup then) ended in tears as she got frightened of the huge group of audience and break into tears and refuse to perform.

Busy as he is, papa rushed between 2 meetings so that he can see her perform. 

Before the performance started, papa and mommy went to the rooms where the children were.  Tried as they might, they cannot recognise Kate among the heavily-made-up children from outside the room! :P

Later, while waiting for the concert to start, papa saw some tables selling photos from the full dress rehearsal held a few days earlier.  He came back to mommy with excitement,saying that he saw a few shots of Kate, splendid in her costume.  Mommy went to check out the photos, and came back telling papa that the girl looks like Kate, but when did Kate never stand there and smile sweetly into a camera?

Below a scanned picture of the photo. It was confirmed to be her after she appeared on stage. :)

The show starting with a song by all the students.  Cannot find Kate among the kids. :P

Next, all the individual class is supposed to perform an item.

Her class is supposed to perform a Malay dance.  Here is a snapshot.  Kate was already pointing and swaying even before the music started.  See video below for proof.  She is sooo cute.... esp when she is so petite :P

Below is another video of the whole performance.  She is the kid is the rightmost side (your right, ie) with the peach costume.  Look how she is jumping up and down most of the time while her partner is more concerned about his nose or nails. The video is very shaky cos mommy keep laughing at her funny antics.

It could be because this time the audience are seated much further away, but this time round, she did not cry. Brave gal! :)

After the performance, we fetch her home, but not before taking some pictures in her cute costume.

 

Look at all her act-cute gestures she learnt from watching Taiwanese variety shows!

 

So all in all, she did put up a entertaining performance! :)

20091129 premmie's outing

[mommy : how can i forget to post about this???]

One of the mommies in the premmies thread decided to open the doors to her house this long weekend and invited the premmies for a big gathering!

It is fun to see all the faces, and don't look down on all these bawling babies, they are strong warriors, some of them born when they are only 20+ weeks in gestation, and has overcome lots of hurdles.  And the oldest premmie of them all?  The organiser kkf who is a 20+ weeker herself decades ago! :)

And in the pictures are mommies who are brave enough to have other children after giving birth to a premmie, and even one with triplets! :)

20091128

In the morning, Kate and papa and mommy went to the full month celebration of her first

表弟, the 2nd child of (her one and only) 姑姑.  The only pictures captured are of the oh-so-cute bite-size sweet a relative had bought from Muji in Japan.  Mommy wondered if this cutie stuff can  be found in the local Muji stores but doubt so.

After the party, papa and mommy went to burn some holes in some pocket by visiting Sitex@Expo, before adjourning to Changi Beach for some sand, sea and aeroplane viewing.

Kate enjoying the sea breeze.  Note that the weird sitting position is because she is in her cleanliness mood again and therefore dare not sit on the sand and sat on mommy's shoes instead.

 

The confused look? Cos all these sandcastles are made by mommy, not her!

 

She was more engrossed in creating pots of wet sand....

 

Publish Post

20091127 Kate read the alphabets

Kate is inspired to read out the alphabets after watching Leapfrog's The Letter Factory infinite times. And nope, she does not know phonics. She knows those alphabets form the word 'armadillo' because mommy told her so.

20091126

Kate's first time on the circle line... carried her and showed her the dark tunnel in front of the driver-less train....

20091122

Posted this pictures cos she look so cute..it is very difficult to capture solo pictures of her nowadays... this is taken when we are on the bus on the way to the library...

literally consuming knowledge from a book...

20091121

Went to the ranch Home @ Dempsey Hills

apetitizer.. cake... the staff, upon hearing that Kate might not like mousse, cut a smaller piece as sample for us to try first, so that we will not be stuck with a big piece of uneaten cake if the gal was to reject the food.  Good service!

main course.. pasta (of course!).  Not bad.

dessert... Ben and Jerry's.... she preferred the m&m's toppings than the ice cream.

Cheyanne, who now happily calls me Auntie after the last time I played with her all kinds of kiddy games in the middle of North Point...

 

Keondre and his mommy... smart boy...

 

20091115 Kathleen is 3 years old!

Kathleen is 3 years old!  Had a small celebration at yeye's place.

The Barney cake papa bought from Prima Deli. The small pair of hands holding the Ericsson hp camera belongs to Kate.

Cutting the cake. This year, Kate did not bawl when everyone is focusing on her and singing the birthday song, but her eyes are red (trying not to cry). She managed to blow out the candles with help.

20091108 science center

Mommy got some omni theatre tickets and so off the kids they go to Science center....

In front of the moving dinosaur...

 

the 'chop'.  Janice chopped hers on her forehead... :P

The kids playing at the tree house.....

 

Omni theatre show - Under the sea.  Luckily papa did not come along, for the show that he wanted to watch, Space Station was replaced by Under the Sea wef November.

 

 

The seats are abit cramped.  But I guess they are normal cinema size, but mommy cannot know for sure cos she has not been to a cinema in years!

Mommy had pre-warned Kate that there will be a 'big TV' and it will be dark.  So when the lights were dimmed, she turned around and smile at mommy and said 'don't worry', indicating that she is not scared of the darkness.  Brave gal!

There are a few 'eating' scenes, but the kids aren't afraid.  In fact, they are more scared by the adults who screamed during those scenes!

Despite the darkness and 'long' duration (40minutes, long for hyper tots), the kids did not asked to leave the theatre (we are seated in the middle of the row).  But Kate keep pushing the seats in front, and then disturb

三姨姨 who was seated at the front (the counter staff kindly split us into 2 rows so that we can get seats that are not so up front) by lowering her head next to hers and then smiling, or turning sideways and smiling at Auntie Beth.

The initial plan was to wrap up the day at the water play area at the Science Center.  But it started pouring around 4pm+ and the water play area was closed.  So the kids loiter around Science Center till 6pm and then grab a bite at Jurong East before going to 婆婆's place for dinner.

20091105 dancing queen

dancing in Yoshinoya to its piped music.  Rare footage since nowadays she prefer to be behind the camera.

20091101

impromptu pic taken when kate was watching the tv while lying on the floor (yes, cultivating bad habit). so sweeettttttt ;P

20091017-20091018

Deepavali, so off we go to the Istana which Kate has never visited before!

In front of the main gate. We reach there around 10am+ and there was no queue.  Note that each of us have our own camera...ahehhhee

The weather is quite warm though which shows (notice that there are quite a few grumpy Kate shots)

Running up to the central/center gate

Parrot show courtesy of Bird Park.  You have to donate a minimum sum (for charity) to take pictures with the birds.

This shot is taken by Kate using her ericsson.  Not bad....

The Japanese 'garden'

Kate's shot of the water plant just below the water which cannot be seen in the above picture.

Kate's favorite part of the Istana - the temporary playground.

A baby size see saw (guess who is 'thick-skinnedly' see-sawing with her!)

swing.... mommy does not understand why so many neighbourhood playgrounds do not have swings.

Kate called this the 'baby slide'.

Ahhhh.... mommy's favorite part of the Istana.  The big tree which can be climbed upon. :) Mommy climbed the same tree decades ago...ahhahaha

Main building

The fountain

Look at the city skyline behind...

Kate got excited when she saw this toddler height traffic light.

She took a picture of each traffic light (there are two, each facing the opposite direction, as can be seen in this picture)

Taking a picture of the guard at the main gate.  There is another guard at the other side of the gate but he has not have a rifle.

Kate's eye view.  Mommy wondered what will happen if Kate gave him a kiss but decided not to try it since, after all, he has a rifle.

Imelda Kate trying out shoes at Bugis Village some time later after we went to the temple...

Later that evening, mommy took out a package of Nutri-tea, and poured out half, and want Kate to share the remaining half of the packet with Papa.  But one sip of the tea and she got possessive, insisting on finishing the whole pack and did not share with papa.  She even pose for the camera with the drink.

Next day, kate went for a swim with her new water gun which she enjoyed very much.! :)