40 Months

Abby turns 40 months (3y 4m) last 20th Dec 2017

Weight

15.4 kg (as of 101217)

Height/Length

99cm

Teeth

20 pearly whites.

Motor Skills

• Still actively bounces, jumping, hopping, running a lot.
• Still, dislike pencil colouring activities.
• Able to beads her bracelet steadily.

Communication and Social Skills

• After she came back from her first-day orientation in kindy, she has been asking me “why do we have bend down during a fire?” (271117)
• Upon coming back from her third day of orientation in Kindy, she has been singing a Chinese song over and over again which she has learnt during that day’s one-hour session of Chinese songs (291117)
• “Why boys need to wear pants?” (281217)
• “Why shark has to be in water?” (021217)
• “Why so smelly? (and continued upon  discovering the reason) Oh, my daddy eating chewing gum” (021217) She then followed on with Johnny Johhny yes papa song (interrogating daddy if he is eating chewing gum). Lol
• “Why people running on the road?”(021217)
• She pointed at her cold syrup with I fed her with her medications and claimed: “this one made me so tired” (011217).
• “Why boys need small toilet? Why need small one?” upon seeing the urinal when we passed by men’s restroom in a restaurant (181217).
• “Why is the arrow going up, up, up?” upon seeing the forward sign of a traffic light (191217)
• “Look, got instructions!” she exclaimed excitedly when she discovers a manual inside my parcel (021217).
• She requested me to hand her the Hello Kitty teapot set which she usually takes with her during the shower to which I cannot find. This little girl then asked me to “look poporly (i.e properly), mommy” (021217).
• While waiting for the hub to get a parking space, we waited at the hospital’s lobby when we visited MIL, Missy chanced upon a landscape in between buildings and commented: “Nice forest, mommy” (021217).
• She handed me a sticker all of a sudden despite me not knowing what have I done to deserve that “Mommy, I am giving u a sticker because u did well” (031217).
• Can finally pronounce “which one do you like?” word by word, clearly (051217)
• “Yellow and red are orange best friend” (101217) & “spoon and fork are best friends”
• I overheard her saying “oh my goodness” once in a while (161217).

Emotional Development

• Exactly knows how to convince, reason and persuade whenever she wants something very much.

Food and Feeding

• Loves ice lollies. Sometimes, this cheeky girl hinted me her wish by saying “I’m feeling hot, mom. Maybe we can have ..... (paused).. ice lolly?” (241117)
• She discovered a pair of matching cutleries at home and requested me to serve her ‘nice food on a plate’ (specifically emphasized as I prefer to feed her with a bowl) – 081217
• There was an evening when she asked for second and third pieces of fish slice. I happily offer her forth slices but she rejected me nicely by saying “No thanks, cos me three years old”. LOL (181217)
• Loves mommy's garlic toast (071217)

Her Firsts

• Attended her first orientation at her kindy for four days (27-30 Nov 2017)
• She has been watching Peppa Pigs via YouTube on daddy’s Ipad and for the very first time, she requested “Mommy, I wanna press good (like)” while gesturing a thumb up (091217).
• We collected her first big girl's school bag at the courier office and she is loving her Tiger Family's bag very much. As for me, I am a happy bunny as if I have hit a jackpot as it is not easy to buy something where both of us likes equally these days :) (121217)

Play n Learn

• She is into fairies and princesses these days. She requested me to buy her a wand and has been chanting “Magic wand, magic wand, please make my daddy’s/mommy’s face funny/pretty/ (yadayadayada)” (011217)
• Enjoyed her Lego time with daddy and briefed us on the difference between stairs and ladder she found from the loose stash (011217)
• Is able to point and count steadily (031217).
• We learnt about buoyancy. She can differentiate between things that float and sink (031217).
• Loves pretend play. She has been rather apprehensive towards the idea of going school lately simply because she is afraid of being left by us. I am happy when I overheard her pretend play conversation between mommy zebra & baby zebra (our antique toys at my parent’s place) on the first day of school. I can safely assume that she understands clearly why she is being left at school but adjusting and taking time to combat her fear, hopefully (151217).
• Books she has been loving at 40mo – Hot and Cold, The Usborne Big Book of English Words (long-loved book), Magic School Bus series

Records

• Down with a bad cough and the medication prescribed by our regular paed doesn’t seem to work this round (241117). I even returned to the paed and requested for a heavier dose (291117) after getting comments from her teachers that she has been coughing quite badly that morning.
• Received specially delivered Violet musical doggy plush toy from gu-po (091217)
• She has been watching quite a number of Halloween YouTube channels and she is afraid to be left alone in the room even for a split second. When I asked her why she said she was afraid of monsters and the haunted house (101217).
• Returned to KK, mommy’s hometown for holiday (13-211217) & qq’s wedding (171217)

Fashion

• She insists to wear a dress wherever she goes these days, except for her pyjamas. She questioned me one day “Mommy, why you wear pants? You are not a boy. Why not wearing a skirt?” (051217)
• Upon seeing a small tote bag in Hush Puppies, she hurriedly carries one and exclaimed “this is so small, good for me. And, the colour matches my sam-sam (i.e clothes)” (181217).

Growing Crystals at Home

I have a few packets of borax sitting in my drawer. I bought them after Missy requested me to make her slime after watching them on Youtube channel. My colleague suggested me to use laundry detergent (Dynamo for blueish hue) but I was not very keen towards the idea of using liquid detergent for a kid to play with. Clear glue seemed to be a great option but this promise was still kept pending as I got out a little of hand for the past few months before we wrapped up for year-end holidays.

When I googled on other usages of borax for kids, I stumbled upon growing borax crystal and I thought it was great for Missy to somehow know what crystallization is about. Since it requires boiling water, most of the steps were managed by myself including the shaping of pipe cleaners into the shapes and initial of the names mentioned by little lady boss which she wanted to present her crystal to from grandparents, grandaunts, aunts and her little baby cousin Issac.

What will be needed:

Pipe cleaners

Boiling water: Borax (I used a ratio of 2 cups to 9 tbs borax as per recommended from the sources I visited)

String (I used ordinary sewing thread)

Stick (I used lidi sticks)

Glass jar/bottle (heatproof)

Pegs/clips (to fasten the thread onto the stick) - not necessarily needed

  

Diluting the boiling water with the borax is not difficult, totally contrary to what I have thought earlier. Next, the pipe cleaners will be immersed in the water-borax solution with the aid of a string and stick. Provide some gap in between of the pipe cleaners in case you are immersing more than one, and avoid the pipe cleaner to touch the base of the solution in the jar. Come back the next morning and you will be able to see beautiful crystals. In fact, crystals can be seen gradually forming within a couple of hours. It is as easy as it sounds. 

Missy was very happy with her 3 crystal hearts and decided to give 2 of them to grandma (on top of a baby breath bouquet on the exact day - 051017) and yi-yi as birthday gifts because coincidentally October is their birth month and another coincidence, daddy willingly agrees to be her messenger since he will be flying over for work the following day (231017) :). 

Happy New Year 2017

We had a laid back New Year Day albeit the long weekend (since New Year Day falls on a Sunday) in the comfort of our home by doing some spring cleaning before Chinese New Year comes along in a few weeks time. I had a long to-do list as a result of too much dilly-dallying all these while :P Among the list are to set up a corner/room for Missy. I have been indecisive whether to utilise the corner in our living room or to make space out of our current guest room for her since we didn’t expect for guests stay with us that frequent. All these years, we have only hosted 3 visits thus far.

We were so glad that the stash of books I ordered a few weeks back has finally arrived. It was the first thing Abby did in the morning by checking out the books in the parcel. Most of them were story books and I have included some sticker activity books for Missy too. We are looking forward to more activities to be done together soon :).

Besides, I have decided to rummage into the wardrobe to make sure all Missy’s new clothing are sorted out for this coming CNY before she grown out of size like what happened to some her clothing, which happened to be among my favourites :(. Looking at the stash she has got, I think she is all ready for CNY! :P I think I really have to stop shopping for her attire for some time. Easier said than done, shopping for the little girl has never been enough. Not to mention, it was therapeutic and addicting at the same time!. Some of them were presented to her by her grandaunts and aunts.

On the next day (2nd Jan – replacement holiday), we had a fish feeding session with grand uncle and cousins at the Sports Complex.  That was how we ushered in the brand new year. 

23 Months

Abby turns 23months (1y11m) today! Can hardly believe that my little big girl is turning two in just a month time away.  

Weight

11kg (+0.7kg from previous month) 

Height/Length

Around 85cm.

Teeth

Still 16 pearly whites. Showing symtoms (itchy gums) of new pearly whites coming out.

Motor Skills

• Loves to run. Whenever i shouted at her ‘Dont run!’, she would slow down her pace, looking at me and say ‘walk’ and walked as usual but continue running not long after that.
• She is able to go up the slides all on her own at the playground.
• Monkey see monkey do. When she saw Ah Tai’s dentures were taken off, she attempted to pull out her set of teeth too! (250616) LOL
• Being able to put her toes at good use. She is able to grasp / pick up small items with her toes (300616).
• Has better attention span playing jigsaw at home after her attempt playing with elder kids in the church (030716).
• She is better at pretend play. She would put her teddy to sleep, Duplo friends to kneel down and pray, helping bunny to brush her teeth etc.
• Able to put CD to the DVD player tray and press the right button to play.
• Able to spit (partly swallowed) but not gargle.
• Has the strength to prop her hands on something sturdy to sustain her own weight before swinging her legs front and back (070716).
• Is able to bend herself to reach her foot. Loves to bring her foot up to touch her nose, ears and chin (picked up from the kids song video).

Communication and Social Skills

• Can hum / sing simple tunes. Among the songs she would hum along with me are Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars (whenever she look up the sky and pointed me the stars whenever we got back home after dinner)
• Understands opposites (up & down, ‘eh-pen’ (open) & close, big & small, run& walk and more).
• Knows how to bargain. During our trip to the playground and while she was having fun going up the stairs for the slide, when we say ‘Come on, let’s go’, she would reply ‘One’, sometimes ‘One, plish’ with her index finger pointing upwards indicating one more time. But, as expected, her ‘one more time’ is subjected to repetition :P
• Can parrot up to three syllable words (i.e: he-li-cop for helicopter)
• Can answer to simple questions whenever we look at an image / books.
• Can mention and point to her body parts simulteneously and accurately. So far, she is able to point and say eyes, nose, ‘outh’ (mouth) and leg.
• Says ‘plish’ (please) and ‘thaen’ (thanks) conviniently these days.
• Other words she can say: o-bot (robot), air-plane (aeroplane), e-bird (angry bird), air-ground (playground)
• Occasionally, she is able to tell when she has poo-ed by saying ‘dirty’ (0040716).
• A clean (but messy) queen in the making. When she saw a single strain of hair in her puzzle box, she quickly exclaimed ‘dirty’. On another note, she loves pulling tissue out from the box or tearing off tissues from a roll to wipe areas she thinks  dirty and excalimed ‘wipe’ (050716).

Emotional Development

• Able to make surprise tone by exclaming ‘eh-cheng’ or ‘oh-oh’ (i.e oh-no!)
• The boss and I trying to make a no gadget policy in the bedroom at night. We are trying to refrain from attending to any Whatsapp messages and reading online comics from Ipad whenever possible. Last two days, she can somehow sooth herself up when her addiction strikes but not obliged by deh-deh nor mommy when she requested for videos. She was seen to run over to her baby cot (read: storage area) to look for her Yamaha keyboard, children laptop and her Leapfrog Leap Pad (anything that produces music I think). The boss and I were trying so hard not to laugh out loud.

Food and Feeding

• Still barely take take her main meals but having better or raveneous appetite at night. Since i have started her on formula at 18mo, only until last two weeks she had been requesting ‘milk-milk’ twice around 2am and 5am. After downing the bottle of milk, she would request for ‘bob-bob’ before getting back to sleep.
• Loves apple and call them ‘ae-pooh’ followed by ‘aam’ (gesturing apple muching).
• Likes her milk to served lukewarm (ratio of 2oz of boiling water + 4oz room temperature water). If the temperature is a little hotter than usual, she would say 'nyet' (hot in Hakka) or 'ot' (hot), returning the bottle to us and request it to be ‘washed’ (run over tap water to cool down).

Records

• Contracted the germy germs from mommy – flu, chesty cough, laryngitis (240616).
• Being a see-no-touch type of cat lover, she was frightened and got traumatized (for one night only) when the cat stretches out its arm and almost scratches her face during a dinner with my colleagues. She was crying loudly and it was my bad for not keeping a close eye at her although I was just beside her when she got too excited and attempted to touch the cat with a slightly older jie-jie (my colleague’s daughter).
• She hurt her scalp from a fall after running out from the bathroom like a spring chicken. It was such a heartache and worrisome when I first smell blood tinge when I blew on her scalp (a way we soothe each other after getting hurt).
• Developed thumb suckling and loves directing our fingers into her mouth and bite gently, probably to soothe her gums.
• Developed rashes on the buttock and loves scratching on them till bleeds. So far, I applied Shaklee herbal blend at night and she was on Sudocream during the day at Ah Tai :(
• Had her second haircut from home by same walk-in hairstylist, who came over to trim Ah Tai’s and MIL’s hair. According to aunt in-law, she quickly exclaimed ‘no-no-no’ when she saw the lady came down from the car but she finally obliged when they promised her for a trip to the playground the same evening (190716).

Sleeping Patterns

• Her long forgotten bunny, a gift from her maternal gung gung and popo is now back in action. They have been co-sleeping lately. She would tuck her under the comforter before getting herself positioned beside bunny :P
• As far as I could recall, the little missy has never fancied any sort of blankie. Even as young as one month until last couple of weeks, she would throw a kicking fit whenever we cover her with a blanket or swaddle her. Out of a sudden, she requested me to cover her with the comforter. Even if I didn’t, she would make the effort to drag the super thick comforter up to her chest. I later found out that she picked this up from a kids VCD which she watched at Ah Tai with her grandaunt.

Her Firsts

• Received her first advanced 2^nd birthday pressie from maternal grandparents (a two aka four wheels bicycle which she handpicked herself during our KK/Miri trip.
• Received a toy car from deh-deh during the visit to JR House (060716).
• Received a tricycle from grandaunt (070716) as early birthday pressie.
• Attended her (our) first RE Family Day 2016 last Sunday (170716) in the church.
• Despite we have bought her numerous color pencils or magic colors, we bought her the first Jumbo color pencils and she adored them so much up to the extend bringing it to bed and looking for it when she woke up in the middle of the night (200616).

LEGO fever is back!

This week had been a stressful and challenging one. Finally, I am glad that weekdays had come to a dawn and I finally wave Hi to weekend days where I can spend a little bit more time to work on this, my new project :)

Both the boss and I (Missy too with her LEGO Duplo sets!) are LEGO fans. During our recent trip back to KK for CNY, the boss had itchy hands when we came across with a third party set, Decool Famous Car which was sold with just a fraction of an original LEGO Technic set. Out of curiosity, we grabbed the biggest set available on the shelf.  But, in order to keep himself as a true blue original LEGO fan, he presented the set to me instead and challenged me to assemble them while in the meantime, he is diligently working on his LEGO technic Crawler Crane, a new addition to his LEGO Technic family. Being a newbie to Technic series, my progress was started more than a week ago but was lackadaisically surpassed by the boss in less than an hour span :P

I am currently sparing a few minutes of time on a day (if possible) and usually manage to complete a maximum of a couple of steps before heading to meet up Missy and for dinner at Ah Tai’s. I am reminding myself not to compare myself with the boss’ progress instead giving myself a year time span and we’ll see how far I can go. Shall time permits, I will keep my progress documented from time to time :)

My first bake

This is my first bake with my new oven and I think I have never successfully baked for once with my mom’s oven except for a failed attempt, once long time ago. I have been coaxing the boss to get me an oven and he finally agreed to redeem one for me with points accumulated with his credit card. The oven arrived when I was still pregnant with Missy so it has been sitting on the shelves like a white elephant for months before my aunt in law offered to teach me in baking my current favorite blueberry cheese tart after seeing me ordering them several times from my colleagues for church activities and home services.

We quickly sealed a date on a public holiday and I brought my oven to Ah Tai’s place so I could get myself familiarize with the functions and temperature of my oven. The result was good, but not as appealing as expected. I even tried to make a batch on my own to be brought to the church for Sis Nancy’s farewell party. I was flattered that it was among the fast-going food and as witty as she is, Nancy commented that the tart isn’t pretty but taste as good as those outside bought and patted me on my shoulder and said ‘you have passed’ Lol :P The recipe isn’t anything mind-blowing and is available with just a click a way with Mr Google. From what I have gathered, they are pretty much alike from one to another. But, on a personal note, I am still not very satisfied with the crust and I am still figuring out on how to make it crispier to a perfect crumble, and of course to improve the appearance of the tart :P 

Our bundle of joy is here!

After 267 days of pregnancy, our long awaited angel is finally here :) Life has taken a new spin, we are ‘promoted’ as parents. Heaven sent from above a precious little girl for us to cherish and love. Lil Abigail made her grand entrance at 8:43am on 20th August 2014 (38 weeks 1 day), weighting 2.57kg via an elective caesarean, two weeks ahead from her due date which was estimated on Sept 2nd.  We are still learning and adapting to so many new changes in countless ways, especially sleep deprivation part :) The boss’ 7-days paternal leave had ended whilst I am on a three months maternity leave. Things are tough for the first few days, gradually getting better now and I am pretty sure that this is for temporary and easier times will soon dawn :). 

Pink as a peach (taken with the boss' PS Vita)

Every little things she did

My mom is awesome, or beyond that :) She has been doing a lot of packing especially for my brother when he was studying out of the town a couple of years ago before he managed to be transferred back to the city where we lived. Fast forward to March 2013, when I was relocated to this nature city for work. It was a very short notice for me, but a pleasant surprise considering the fact that I will be married in May 2013 (then) and will be residing here for good. Ever since then, mom has been diligently and ever readily pack my stuffs over. Those stuff will be conveniently ready whenever the boss fly over, he will be bringing home a few boxes of my stuff :P Sometimes, they were sent by chartered bus. All I need to do is to drop by the bus station and collect them as long as I remember my parcel number. Back then, my housemates have been commenting that I have never return to the house (after going out for church with the boss) without huge boxes of parcels :).

I personally think mom did the best packing in the wide wide world. Her creativity and brain juice is endless. After we touched down Sdk, mom sent over a big Tupperware carton box containing all my newly purchased stuff throughout my one-week stay in my hometown before the boss and I fled to Hong Kong. On the day when we returned KK for a transit back to Sandakan for a night stay, we weren’t aware that it was a little too late for us to top up our luggage size online, after weighting all my stuffs at home. Too bad, not wanting to pay a hefty for a last minute baggage check-in weighting another additional of more than 40kgs via the counter, we just lug whatever we can with our 20kgs quota and my parents offered to send the rest to the bus station the next few days upon the arrival of the facial brush I ordered from Singapore to be sent to my hometown address, with the hope that it will be ready the moment I touched down KK from HK so that I could pack it along with my other belongings, but it came a little later than I expected.  

When I was unpacking the box, I was pleasantly surprised that all my present papers were not crumpled at all despite located at the bottom of the box, my newly bought soft covered file from Daiso were tucked in a canvas document bag (given by my mom), porcelain display which was initially wrapped with newspaper by the cashier were bubble-wrapped, my notebook’s charger were given a new casing bag, just to name a few.

What made me squealed in delight was the box of old-school magic color which I didn’t pack along were packed and given a new face lift. The shabby casings were replaced with a DIY box made of used diary outer cardboard casing. If not because I see the cut off part of its original Faber Castell’s trademark from my previous shabby card-box, I might have presuming it as a complimentary gift since my mom packed along with a 2014 diary and table calendar (my mom is my all-time diaries, notebooks, organisers, calenders supplier). On top of that, my mom packed along a dozen of organic rose apples, courtesy of my aunt. There were neatly arranged and carefully underlain with dust bags which I bet taken from one of her leather bags, into a shallow carton box with top opening. Not forgetting, mom transported along a pomegranate sapling. It was packed as if it will be exported overseas into a shuttlecock's tube casing with so many rubber bands tied in oh-so-artsy way. Hehe. Isn't mom a gem? I am missing her so much, ♥ her even more :).

Of Pageboy, Ring Bearer & Flowergirls

We have been contemplating to look whether for a bridesmaid / bestman or to settle for flowergirls / pageboys. I have no problem to find for the candidates for the earlier mentioned. I have two competent candidates on hand; my sister and brother. But, since my sister was undergoing her practical by that time, it wasn’t easy for her to take leave. Even taking a day off for my wedding took her few months in advance for approval. On the other hand, it was the peak season where my brother will be sitting for his A-level final exam and he has a paper the following Monday, a day after my church wedding ceremony and he wasn’t able to turn up for the groom’s family reception on that night.

Eventually, we settled down to be accompanied by little friends instead. We have two nephews (only) at the boss’ side; aged 8 and 3.5 respectively but no niece. Therefore, we have to resort to find little girls with corresponding age at the church. Oh boy it wasn’t easy to find their ‘other half’. The search was to no avail but thanks to the boss’ paternal aunts and my sis-in-law, they managed two girls by the age of 9 years and 6 years. Slightly incompatible to the age of our 2 nephews but definitely better than our initial resort to have only 2 pageboys (cum ring bearer) and to be frank, all the family members were still doubtful if the younger nephew could make it. All sorts of out-of-the-box suggestions came up on how to coax and make him walk through the aisle. One of them was by allowing this Disney Junior hard core fan to get hold of a tab or hand phone all along the way :P 

On that day itself, our little ring bearer John (the boss’ 3.5yo nephew) made all of us awed when he made his grand entrance into the church. Hand on hand with his elder brother, James walked up the aisle as the ring bearer and melted hearts of many :). I can see the boss swelling with pride that his very clingy little nephew has actually made it through as he detoured half way during rehearsal the night before. But, this little boyfriend of mine konked out by the time the nuptial ends thus didn't take part in the recession. As for the flower girls, I am beyond glad that they loved the dresses we bought them and even asked if they can actually keep the bouquet as well. 

I just can’t thank the boss’ paternal aunt who was more than willing to take a flight to KL merely to hunt for our little friends’ dresses and tux & pants. Aunt Fong brought home very pretty with good quality loots and can’t wait to show them to me. She added, she would sew them shall her quest was to no avail. Isn’t she such a gem? :) While Aunt Yung has been helping me out with all the accessories from head gear, flower arrangements and church pew designs. I have not much things to be bothered about. I am eternally grateful that I feel much belonged to the Pang’s big clan.