Swimming

Took the boys swimming last week. It was Chris' first experience at the pool and probably Dennis' first for this year. We used to take Dennis swimming quite often until he started school and started falling sick quite often....

I think Chris enjoyed himself at the pool. He was a little weary being in the water initially and perhaps the crowd overwhelmed him too. But after playing in it for a while, he started to enjoy himself and refused to go when it was time to leave. He protested and motioned us to put him back to the pool but of course we didn't. Not getting enough of the pool, during dinner, he asked kakak to position his high chair to face the pool , so that he could eat his meal while enjoying the view of the pool. =)

Update on Chris

A little update on Chris - so what can he do now?

1) He's a able to take a few steps on his own without holding on to any furniture

2) He's starting to say a few words too. I've actually heard him say kakak, and "da" (beat in mandarin- the word my aunt uses to threaten him when he plays with shoes or anything he's not supposed to). He also randomly mimics some of the things we say to him. Sometimes he really takes us by surprise.

3) He's made some attempts to climb out of the playpen - guess it's just a matter of time before he actually climbs out

4) He knows how to sip from a straw.

5) He's enjoying Richard Scarry's Best Learning Video Ever, and will clap and cheer along with the cartoon. His favourite song in the video is "If You're Happy and You Know It" which was also Den's favourite. Very attentive when he's watching this video, am amazed by his attention span - he can sit through the entire 20 minutes.
Oh, he also likes Kungfu Panda. I thought it would be a bit "adult" for his liking but apparently not. He may not sit through the whole movie but he can sit still and watch it for quite some time.

6) He still likes to shake his legs when he's drinking his milk - especially when he's hungry

7) His lips are getting thicker, slowly matching the thickness of his dad's (but thank god it hasn't grown in size)

Christopher is 1

Ok, this post is a bit belated. Chris turned 1 on 22 May, which is about 2 weeks ago but we actually celebrated his birthday a week before that......so yes, this post is about 3-4 weeks late. I've already put up the photos on FB but according to my sis, it's not enough, I still need to blog about it. So here it is.

As always, it was just a small celebration with the immediate family members. But we didn't cook this time because I had to attend to some work thingy on Sat and on Sun (the day of the celebration) I had a meeting with a friend in the afternoon. So we decided on pizza and KFC and a birthday cake of course. It was a simple party but I think everybody had fun - well, like they say, it's the company that matters! As for the birthday boy, I think he was completely oblivious of the celebration but was happy to be able to eat and eat and eat and sample some new food.

I felt a bit guilty not putting in much effort for the "party" so I decided to buy some party deco to add to the merriment! =)

Got the kids party hats too!

The birthday cake (which Chris got to sample)


Birthday boy and daddy


Birthday boy and mummy


By the end of the party, the birthday boy was a bit tired and grumpy.

Look Mummy! No Hands!

Chris is learning to stand now. He can stay on the standing position for about 10 secs or more.

Sorry, you have to tilt your head - I don't know how to upright the video .

PS: Sin , you do notice he's wearing that kung fu track pants. =)

Dennis and His Songs

Dennis loves singing and he's diplayed a passion for singing from young. Even though he still can't pronounce his words properly, he's already singing his heart out. He creates his own versions of all the songs he likes - singing some bits correctly and the rest are just pure gibberish.

It's so cute to hear him sing and as his mum, it's gratifying to see him having such confidence of himself. There was actually one point in time when he became very self concious and stopped singing completely. But slowly I've managed to encourage him to sing again and now he's singing his favourite nursery rhymes songs every night. He may be singing gibberish but I'm proud of his singing and I love listening to them too!

Here's a video of Dennis singing Old King Cole,one of his favourite songs.




And here's him singing My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

10 Things about Christopher

1. He totally despises having his nose wiped, he’ll shake his head so hard to avoid the wiping, sometimes we fear his neck may just snap.

2. He loves food, his lips will start moving when he sees food and it doesn’t matter what you’re eating, he wants to have whatever you’re having. My sis once caught him licking his lips, drooling over some apples on the altar table – she actually brought him there to pray but obviously his attention got diverted. He loves fruits especially apples, bananas, grapes and nectarines (provided it’s sweet). Who am I kidding, that boy just loves food! He sometimes finishes his bro’s food cos Dennis eats so slowly. Yes, despite having only 2 teeth (at the bottom) and being able to process only a small amount of food at any one time, he’s able to eat faster than his 3 year old bro. To be fair, Den is quite a slow eater.

3. He love his bro’s company – breaks into a big happy smile when he sees his bro and gets all excited when he watches his bro play. But sometimes he gets a bit annoyed by Dennis too cos Dennis likes to “kacau” him like poking his face, pushing him, giving him rough hugs...that really gets to him. But Chris gets his revenge by “Godzilla-ing” Dennis’ train tracks and toy bridge when Dennis is playing.

4. Loves his bolsters to bits – the sight of his bolster will make him grin happily and he’ll lunge over to grab it. Even when he’s hungry and crying for his milk in the middle of the night, Chris will still bend down to pick up his bolster to hug, amidst his pitiful sobs.

5. He’s pretty good with the camera. He actually makes a cute face for the camera and smiles to it. So cute!

6. Knew how to get down from the bed on his own at the tender age of 6 months old. He would slowly wiggle his way from the middle of the bed to the floor, with his backside first and land on his feet. I don't know where he learned this but we certainly didn’t even teach him. I was surprised to see him do that one day out of the blues. Dennis was different - when he first started learning to get down from the bed, he went head first, and tumbled down to the floor like Humpty Dumpty.

7. Started crawling up the stairs when he’s 8 months old. Mummy’s now training him to climb up the stairs, crawl to my room to fetch my handbag when I need to go out. (just kidding!)

8. He’s got big feet and his toes are way too long for an infant. I bought him a pair of shoes meant for 9-12 month old for Chinese New Year (he was about 8 months old then) and he couldn’t fit in them. We had to push and tuck his feet into the shoes like how Cinderella’s step sisters did with the glass slippers but we still failed to slide the feet in. And I thought I couldn’t go wrong with so much buffer! Cuz Jake will benefit from this.

"miku" foot - his foot is so meaty

His foot is almost the size of my aunty's palm.

9. He knows when to say no when he says no, he means NO. From young (like 2-3 months old), he would push the bottle away when he didn’t want any more milk. And he’d cry so hard if you even try to force him to drink a tiny bit more. As he got slightly older, he learned to shake his head vehemently when he refused something. Now that he’s bigger, he’ll wriggle his way out of your grip and he can be quite strong.

10. He’s not very good with strangers. He really needs time to warm up with the people he’s unfamiliar with. At the beginning of the meeting, he will stare intently and suspiciously at the stranger for a very very long time, refusing to get near him/her. Depending on his degree of unfamiliarity with you, he may need about 15 minutes to a few hours to warm up.

Mommy, a thousand times over!

I’ve lamented several times in the past about Dennis not being able to talk and not calling me mommy. I’ve also blogged about how happy I was when he uttered "mommy" for the very first time. It was the moment I had been waiting for! And 2.5 years is a long time.

But now I don't find the whole mommy thing so thrilling anymore, not when he calls me like 200 times (or more) a day! For every little thing, he’ll go “mommy, mommy, mommy”! Mommy this, mommy that. It’s a bit overwhelming now. But I’m taking it in stride and trying hard not to show my annoyance to him for I know I should feel blessed that my son is finally calling me. And he's probably making up for lost time! =)

Dennis has made much progress in his speech actually and he’s now started parroting a lot of things that I say, even though he doesn’t pronounce his words clearly. Instead of saying “cry”, he says “try”, “air” instead of “hair”. But the thing that surprises me is that he knows his numbers! He knows after 1 is 2 after 4 is 5 and he can say 8,9, 10. That I’m quite impressed – or maybe my standard’s just very low.