A quick Bibou update

Ok, it’s been all about Angel, and nothing much on Bibou, though she’s been doing quite a lot recently too. She’s still in her VERY princessy stage; always wanting to wear pretty dresses (but they MUST spin or else they’re not pretty). She gabbers away, though it’s mostly Franglais! Classic statements include, ‘mais, I can’t pas reach les buttons, Mummy’. Sigh.

Not too long ago, Daddy bumped into the Bitans and they made plans to go to the Jardin d’Acclimintation. Unfortunately, I was too busy (cooking!) so Daddy went with Bibou alone. According to Daddy, those two were ‘best friends’ again. No fights nothing and the best part, Bibou began enjoying the rides again. Yippee!! (she was afraid of them for a while back). She even went on the 'flying' cars and loved it. I love the video of her talking to Dan’s dad… that’s how she talks now…. with that little coy, confident tilt of her head. I just find that so adorable.

Over the weekend, Daddy got some free tickets to the Steeple Chase, so we all went together to the hippodrome. Bibou was most excited about seeing the horsey and we managed to get up front while the races were on. All she could talk about during lunch (at a scrumpious Sichuan restaurant in Paris, and we were really thrilled that Bibou practically ate almost everything in front of her, including some baby bok choy!!) was going to see the horseys!

Videos

Screaming with delight to Daddy,

Angel's Astonishing Progress

Right, an Angel Update. There’s just soooooo much difference, so much progress during the past month, it’s incredible! The biggest news is that she’s started to cruise (walk against furniture) and is very close to walking. In fact, just this weekend, she took her first ‘5’ steps unaided! The video below of her in a diaper was at the end of the first week of starting to cruise. She’d made very impressive improvement that first week. We were all amazed. We were also very tickled to see her doing that ‘hind leg up to pee’ action (something she still does now!)! She’s very quickly learnt to cruise along / over all obstacles to get to where she wants. Her favorite is Daddy’s CD tower so that she can throw all the CDs on the floor; Especially if you say ‘NO’ to her; she’s a very determined and strong minded trouble maker this one. The other day, I noticed that she was inching towards the CD tower, and as I was at the dining table, I turned and said ‘no Seraphine no”, while standing up to get to her. What does she do? She let out a peal of laughter, moved at lightening pace, and practically pounced at the tower and managed to throw a few CDs on the floor (with big force I might add) b4 I could get to her… all while looking at me and laughing at me. Sigh.

Ok another really big favorite in our house (and which really delighted Kongkong and mahmah) is her love for music. Just like her sister and Daddy, she’s quite musically oriented. Whenever any music pops up, she’d automatically move to it, even if she’s strapped down in her car seat, she’d wave her arms and clap them. If she’s standing, she’d give his hilarious dance, moving her bum. It’s gotten us all in stitches. And I bet you too, when you watch the videos (or even better, come and see the real thing yourself!)

As you can tell by the photos, the little one LOVES to eat. She’s a little greedy piglet too, and sometimes you’d see her ‘begging’ by her sister’s chair for a bite of Bibou’s ‘pain au chocolate’ in the morning. She drinks out of a cup already, and at night, she holds her own bottle, though fortunately, hasn’t asked to use the spoon by herself.

Though she hasn’t spoken yet, she’s very expressive and vocal. She’d ‘tell’ you immediately if she doesn’t like it. She does wave ‘byebye’ when you tell her byebye. Unfortunately, it looks like she’s a little bit too expressive in terms of action. She hits (very hard) too often when she gets excited though I’m sure she’s not ‘hitting’ per se, as in hitting in response of her anger, she’s just using her hands to be expressive. I THINK I got a kiss the other day too from her. She reached over and opened her mouth over my cheeks (without biting). Awww.

Oh we put her on the back of Daddy’s bike the other day. It was just toooo cute as these pic show. Though I don’t think she was that excited yet, and was wondering what was happening! She didn't utter a peep though! Just sat there, wide eyed, and allowed Daddy to fiddle with her helmet and adjust her seat belt. Unlike Bibou who let off peals of giggles the first time she was on the bike, Angel was quiet. However Bibou WAS a lot older.

Like her sister, she seems to like animals as the very first time she encountered an animal (Mika the neighbor’s cat) she immediately, reached out and very gently stroked it. I’m so thrilled about that.

Finally, Daddy and Kongkong took the kids to a photoshoot organized by the MESSAGE magazine team. Bibou was on top form of course, given that there's a camera (she likes posing!). Angel, however, wasn't too impressed and preferred to be in kongkong's arms. I actually love the pix of the two babies looking at each other and crying! Daddy did managed to catch a smily pix of her in front of the flower beds!

Until the next update, we’ll see how much she changes.

Some recent videos of Angel










First, one of her just starting to cruise

The hilarious video of her dancing whenever she hears music. (and of course her famous 'throwing down of things')

Another one of her dancing :

And here's one of her using her little play table as a portable thingy to walk.

Seraphine and Mahmah’s birthday

It was Mahmah’s birthday and we celebrated the day together with Angel’s very first birthday. We had a cake and a special candle. We all sang happy birthday while Angel tried to ‘hit’ the cake as she was so excited. She does that a lot, …hitting / beating at stuff when she’s excited, including herself! After cake, Bibou gave Mahmah her present that she picked out “all by self” (as she proudly would say) – though she was really happy to open the present too!

Here are some photos taken of that special day. Happy Birthday Mahmah and Seraphine. You’re 1 year old now… no longer my little baby, but ALWAYS my baby girl, my sweet little baby girl. Don’t go changing!

Daddy's Surprise Birthday Party

It was Daddy’s birthday and boy did I plan a nice one for him! It wasn’t a surprise party (learnt that lesson very quickly!), so he knew that there was gonna be a party (and he helped set up a bit :)), but that was it. He didn't know what was planned, who was gonna be coming, what the menu was going to be, and even who was going to be coming! I’d first grabbed his mobile phone and pulled out all his ‘old’ friend’s numbers. And I called them one by one, people he’d not seen for a long long time. It was unfortunate that his birthday fell (always falls) on a super long weekend, and most people took the opportunity to get out of the city. But there were a few who didn’t and they came to join us. Daddy had no idea who was gonna turn up and boy was he surprised! He was really very happy to see his old friends, esp ‘Choux choux’. I had tears in my eyes when I saw him…it has been a long while.

I spent almost 2 days preparing and cooking the food. Unfortunately, typical me, I’d forgotten to take any photos (I was fortunate enough to ask someone to take pix of the b’day boy with his cake!) of the food. Sigh. So you’ll just have to imagine the food :

Menu
* Spinach dip placed in loaf of round bread, which had the top cut off, and the ‘insides’ dug out and used for scooping the dip (AND chips of course)

*Beef Rendang

*Vegetable curry

*Ghee Rice, cooked with lots of ghee, onion and lovely mix of cardamom, cumin seeds, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, black peppercorn

* Stir Fried noodles

* Glass Noodle salad with minced pork, lots of spring onion, shallots, mint, small chilli padi, with a good soak in a seasoning of lime juice, fish sauce and brown sugar, and topped with dried onions and crushed peanuts

* Mahmah helped with a jellyfish dish, that was marinated in lots of garlic, red chilli padi, black vinegar and sugar.
* Banana Bread (2 loaves!) – special request from old friends! (And apparently banana bread was the hot topic for discussions amongst friends old and new!)

* And a birthday cake (from our local bakery)

It was a lovely day out and we had the party in the garden, with the sun still shining till around 9.30 pm. Fortunately, prior to the guests arrival, we’d placed candles in little tea candle glass holders (from our wedding where we’d purchased over 100 of those!!) all around the garden, lining up the stairs and around. We were able to stay in the garden till very late. I’d made a special birthday card and everyone signed it and after everyone had stuffed their face with food, we brought the cake out and we had fun doing the singing dodad! And then tada, he got presented with his birthday present, which most people chipped in. It was a lovely n’espresso machine which a dear friend T helped to pick out. (we’ve been having wonderful delicious coffee and lattes every day now).

Kong kong and Mahmah are here

Actually, kongkong and mahmah WERE :( here. We had a very lovely 12 days with them. They just left to return to Singapore. The kids especially loved their company, given that they spent most of the time with them, playing with them, walking and talking with them, even feeding them (they just don’t change diapers – not that I blame them!!). On their first morning (they’d arrived too late the night before for the kids), Bibou was just sooo excited to go downstairs and see mahmah and kongkong. She couldn’t wait to get dress and rush down. And though Angel’s normally reserved with strangers, she opened out to them very quickly the first day (perhaps ‘coz she saw how her big sister loved them!) and then every day on she couldn’t wait to see them too. She loved being in kongkong arms. Kongkong could make Angel squeal with laugher at any time!

Of course the kids got totally spoilt with gifts from them. But it wasn’t just about the gifts … Bibou really made full use for their time here, playing and interacting with them, as compared to the last time where Bibou was going through a very difficult phase and just didn’t want to be nice to most people and was just sticky to Daddy (no doubt a reaction to her new sister). You can see by the pix how close Bibou is with her grandparents. It was a very short trip this time, even shorter as the time flew by soo quickly. Bibou did asked for them, wondering where they were for a few days after they left. Hopefully, they’ll be back very soon.