Happy Holidadys!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fireplace... actually, they were roasting in a pan in the oven, but you get the drift! It's just 2 weeks to Christmas, and though we won't be spending Christmas here (we're finally going to Toronto for Christmas), Daddy brought down the Christmas decoration and this evening, we've been decorating the home. Last year, Bibou was still too young to really understand or get excited about it, so we'd waited until she was in bed and decorated everything (though she still wasn't particularly excited about it still when she saw everything). But this year, she helped Daddy with all the decorations, including setting the tree up. We can't wait till next year, when we can get a REAL tree and real decorations (this was a fake tree with all the decorations 'glued' on the tree already).

While decorating, we all burst out singing Christmasy songs, and Bibou joined in especially at jingle bells. She loves the song and can sing it most of the way. (She just came up with this hilarious song (in French) : "I love Daddy, I Love Mummy, on an Elephant!") And when she doesn't know the words, she just goes lah lah lah or pretend she does know the words! As she dug into the bag of 'goodies', she fished out a santa's hat and promptly put it on her, giggling away. When I snapped away with the camera, she insisted on taking a look at herself. Then she wanted Seraphine to share in the merrymaking, and so plonked the hat on her. She just loves to share with Seraphine, and wants her to have everything that she has. She's also concerned about her, always telling me that she's crying.

We just recently started a 'reward chart' for her. Lately, she seemed to have reverted back to her old 'self', being really whiny / moaning all day and also some 'new' 'three year old syndroms" such as sticking her tongue out, talking back, and just being sassy. Arrrgh, just as we thought we're past the terrible twos, we enter the terrible threes I guess. Anyway, the chart seemed to work a little.... just a little. We hope it'll continue to help her.

Little Angel's been waking up really frequently at night now; it's 'coz her SECOND tooth has started to appear. The poor girly. She's not too fussy though, no fever, and no non-stop crying. But I guess it just isn't too comfortable for her. I hope it'll pass soon. In any case, she is still her most cheery, giggly self, giving out explosive laughs all the time. As you can see in the video below :

The months of Firsts.

How long has it been since the last post? Too long! Yes, way too long, as there’s been so much going on with little Angel. Our cuddly little angel is still that; still as cuddly, chubby and oh so adorably cute. She’s a very happy child, always smiley and those explosive giggles she gives just chase the blues away. She’s one talkative baby too. Babble babbles away. The past few weeks are dotted with lots of ‘firsts’! So here’s a list of Angel’s feats recently,
Well, she’s turned 6 months old and this means – first food! Yup, we’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of starting Angel on solids last weekend. I pureed some broccoli which I’d mixed with lots of expressed milk. She gamely took the first few bites, though I think she was too distracted with everything going on to realize what was happening. There was Mummy making funny faces (I had my mouth wide open so that she’d imitate me), Daddy with the camera and Bibou piping up in the background. It was a long process and it a while for her to finish a few spoonfuls. I have to say that she’s not as good an ‘eater’ as Bibou. Bibou practically ate everything we put in front of her in the beginning and she gamely tried everything. We did start her on baby rice and carrots, whereas poor Angel is ‘only’ allowed green vegetables. We’ve also started her on bottled formula too. She still gets my milk (through breastfeeding or expressed in a bottle), but it’s not sufficient for her now. So she gets a supplementary bottle whenever she needs it.
What triggered the bottle was the fact that Angel’s been waking up in the middle of night and crying. Now we’ve also realized that on top of her being hungry, she’s been waking up because… she was teething. 3 days ago, she cut her first tooth! I have to say though, like Bibou, we’ve been really lucky with the kids’ teething. We don’t have a lot of the ‘drama’ that most kids go through – the fevers, pains, irritation, red bottom, diarrhea and not to mention that non-stop crying because of the pain. We had a lot of drooling, a bit of hand biting, coughing (which I assume is because of the excessive drooling). In fact, with Bibou, she didn’t have any symptoms when her molars came in in her second year! (and those were meant to be really painful). Just one day, she opened her mouth really wide and I was stunned to see it filled with her back molars! Here’s hoping that Angel will be just as lucky. We tried to take some photos of her first tooth, but it hasn’t been easy! She keeps wanting to chew on my finger (it does help give some relief).

In the last few days, she’s also started to sit upright on her own. She’s slowly getting the hang of it, as these pictures show. However, she’s not all that enthusiastic about sitting. She prefers lying on her back it would seem, as she would arc her back when I try to lean her against something so that she can sit up straight but with some support. She’ll only try to sit without support. But then she’d topple over after a while. But it’s only the beginning. We’ll continue to sit her up regularly… one just needs to be very vigilant as she still not stable and falls over very often.
Oh and finally, Angel’s gonna get her first passport! (Bibou had hers at a very early age as she travelled to Singapore when she was just 3 months old). We couldn’t find a photo lab to take a photo of Angel now. Apparently most studios are too afraid or feel that it’s just too difficult to take a photo of a baby. You need to go to a special lab that is set up for that! Bah humbug I say. Just another way of trying to charge you more. Anyway, we didn’t wanna have to go all the way into Paris, so Daddy took the pictures himself. It sure wasn’t easy! Especially with a wiggly child who’s automatic reaction when you’re close to her is to giggle and coo at you! Daddy apparently had to go back and forth to the lab as they kept commenting on the photos that this wasn’t right or that wasn’t right etc. They also said that they didn’t think they would accept her hair being so ‘spikey’ and all…so Daddy had to gel it down! It was soooo funny. I LOVE the photo of her with her hair gelled down. It’s soooo not her lol. Anyway, enjoy these recent radom photos and videos of her.

And here's a really funny video of her babbling and squealing in delight!

Another year!

Oh my. Has it been another year already? It was time for Bibou’s school picture again! I have to say that I was stunned when I saw this picture of her. She looks all grown up, like a big little girl, and then I realized, she IS a big little girl now. I’ve just been so used to the other school pictures (click here to see the past 2 years). The year has passed by so quickly; and it has been a great difference. She’s certainly a very ‘girly’ girl. She LOVES pretty dresses and all things pink or princess-y. She wants to wear these foufou dresses (the dresses with petticoats and ribbons and laces) all the time or dress up like a princess. Of course most of these dresses are so not suitable for school so we have to ‘bargain’ or make believe that her normal doing to school dresses are pretty like a princess. Actually most, if not all of her dresses are really pretty, just not ‘fou fou’ily! Apparently, every day, when she greets people she knows, like Giselle her Nanny, and everyone in school, she’d prim herself and her dress, cock her head to one side and tells everyone she has a ‘jolie ‘ (pretty) dress, soliciting for praises from everyone! Sigh.

She’s starting to communicate a lot better these days… speaking in sentences. She’s much more comfortable in French though she will make an effort in English with us. When she can’t find the words in English or is too tired to think, she’d automatically say the words she knows in French. She’s quite opinionated now and has no qualms letting you know how she feels. The other day, while she was drawing with her crayons, Daddy told her to move her book off the sofa and onto the table; without even looking up at him, she’d continued drawing and said “laisse moi tranquille” ie leave me alone! Ai! I think Daddy was too stunned to say anything, and probably biting his cheeks from laughing out loud too! She can say the sweetest things some times. I was rushing through the front door from work one day, struggling with all my bags (I have my handbag, my laptop, a ‘cooler’ with ice pack that holds my pumped milk for the day and a bag carrying the electric pump and bottles and Tupperware containing my already eaten lunch) when I heard a sweet voice ringing out from the dining room “hi Mummy! Did you have a good day?”. Didn’t matter if I had a crappy day or not, I certainly was feeling FINE then! Oh and I just remembered, I was washing up in the kitchen after making Bibou a ‘real’ (none of those fish fingers / nugget / hot dog quick meals that sometimes we resort to) meal of dark soya sauce chicken which she loves when Daddy said “come quick”. So I rushed in, and Daddy said to her “repeat what you just said Bibou” : Thank you Mummy for making me lunch. Oh man, did I melt there. She’d said it without any prompting or anything! It’s the rare times like these that makes parenting all worth while eh?

She’s still a very affectionate child. Loves her sister to bits, she just adores her; always wanting to hold her, cuddle her and hug her. If there’s one thing that would calm her down, that’s her baby sister! She gets upset if she’s doesn’t get to say good night to Seraphine. Look at all these pictures of both of them together. They are just soooo good together. Oh I love these pictures that was taken when all the 4 kids were here and Giselle. Fabulous!

Visit from Aunty Michelle

Sigh. It’s been way too long since I’ve managed to update the blog. It’s been crazy here both at work and at home. I’m also fighting with fatigue these days, trying to juggle the two, and finding a good balance between them. Something’s gotta give, and most of the time, it’s sleep…. Yes and the blog unfortunately! Boo hoo. (it’s funny though, how people often know that I’m really really busy at work when they don’t see an update on the blog. I really don’t update the blog during office hours you know…not always!)

Anyway, despite the long AND hard hours, work has been really interesting. I’m learning new things and my mind is being occupied (beats sitting at my desk staring and wondering what to do sometimes! Or just reading papers lol). The time passes quickly… way too quickly. I’m learning to be as organized as possible, but sometimes it’s not easy. What is really the hardest, is missing home and the girls. And missing out on them growing up. By the time I rush home, and really rush through the evening routine, (b/feed Seraphine while pumping at the same time, get Bibou’s dinner ready and ensure she’s eating everything (and not just the meat), get the two girls ready for their baths, bath time and then bed time), and of course, in between coaxing / telling / screaming at Bibou to do what she’s told, etc, there’s never time to really relax and really spend quality time with the girls. Daddy helps a lot with the routine of course. I’ll never make it without him. He deals a lot with Bibou, while I manage Seraphine. And the weekends now are just so shot! There is always something or other happening the past few weekends! Like for example, we had Aunty Michelle and Uncle Luc visiting us! Yippee what a treat. It was really good seeing them. They arrived on a Thursday evening and spent a long weekend with us. We were totally spoilt, as they’d bought lots of lovely yummy stuff for us, like cookies and sweets. Yum yum. We were so lucky. And the girls, oh Bibou was totally spoilt, as she received lots of wonderful books! Especially one that had a special attachment, it had a built-in ‘toy CD player’ with 4 special CDs (they were all plastic) that plays music while you read. Bibou absolutely LOVES this. Especially now that she’s gotten then hang of inserting the CD and playing. And.. and… this totally cracked us up, especially the first time Daddy and I witnessed this – Bibou starts dancing to the music. She makes up all these cute moves, has this rather intensive “look at me, I’m really pretty” look on her face, and does this ‘cluck cluck’ noise with her tongue. Oh yes, she’s her Daddy’s daughter. A real ham!! Hahahaha. I managed to snap a video of her dancing though it’s not the best one of her dancing.

Anyway, back to M’s visit. We had a really great time as we always do when they visit. I got to cook all our favorite meals, started with Beef Rendang and a sambal zuchinni stir-fry with tung hoon on Thursday. Over the next 3 days, I cooked Beef Hor Fun, chicken rice, jia jaing mein and topped it off with recellet. It was so much fun. We stayed up late (and paid for it dearly the next day – heck, the following week for me as I never recuperated from the lack of sleep) chatting and playing chor dai dee (and the three of them got progressively drunk!) Yes, it was lovely catching up with M & L! Oh and they have asked Bibou to be their flower girl at their wedding next year. Yippee!! I think she’d be really pleased… now I just have to go find a really lovely beautiful dress.

HEres the video of her dancing to her favorite CD player. Not one of her 'bestest' dance though.

Here's another one of her dancing to Angel.