2018 is here

Happy New year! And yes, it is time for spring cleaning! I have never felt so worried for the past 3y5m (ever since Missy was born), I have been so used to a weekly domestic helper to help clean the house and best of all, to take charge of all the laundry folding and ironing. My helper was actually my confinement lady back then. Although I may disagree with her quite sometimes throughout my confinement, especially on breastfeeding issues, we still managed to pull through amicably. She even agreed to help me to do some minor cleaning and laundry once a week. She is just like a part of our family members. I am eternally grateful to have her all these while, at least to keep the house decent looking.

Now, she has decided to stop as she needs to make the preparation of her DIL’s confinement. I have no other better reason to stop her, but wished her the best, although secretly hoping that she could return, someday. While she has given me a two-weeks prior notice, I made some preparation and is somehow mentally prepared. We have acquired some tools to aid our cleaning at home, including a Spin Dry Mop from Cosway (never see the importance prior to this and I’m loving it!) as well as rotating brush to be enclosed to our current jet washer for our patio cleaning for the boss.

We made it the point to spend some family time on the weekends to clean the house together. When I was experimenting my new mop one day, the boss cleared our patio before he started off with his annual cleaning, the little girl is no exception to lending her busy hands :P

Daddy has been teasing her 'the busier you get, the messier it gets' :P

Happily proclaiming that she finally made it. LOL :)

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).

39 Months

Abby turns 39 months (3y 3m) today.

Weight

14.8kg

Height/Length

99cm

Teeth

20 pearly whites.

Motor Skills

• Loves long jump and can jump as targetted (111117).
• Has been yearning to play the yo-yo like a pro for the longest time. When she saw daddy plays the yo-yo one day, she clapped her hands excitedly (111117).

Communication and Social Skills

• She is in her Why-Oh-Why phase and among the questions asked were:
• “why is she wearing music sam-sam (i.e shirt)?” when she sees someone wearing a tee with treble clef image on it (221017).
• “why on light, mommy?” I replied ‘It is dark, don't u think so? “Yes it is” (281017)
• “Why daddy needs a belt?”
• “why ah-poh so fuse? (i.e fierce)” 311017
• “why there is a bridge?” After we answered her, she followed with “what if they fall?” (111117)
• When I took off her hairband before the shower, she grimaced and commented “very painful, mom. Tomorrow gentle” (031117).
• Ah-Tai hasn't been mobile for some time now. One day, Ah-Tai did something out of her norm and this girl complimented her great-grandma “Good boy, Ah-Tai!”. When asked why did she call her great grandma a boy, she promptly answered “cos Ah Tai has short hair” (091117)
• Recently, she loves the term “best friend”. She often comes with witty remarks like “Mommy, the basin is toilet’s best friend” (101117), “Mommy is Daddy’s best friend”, “Grandma is Grandpa’s best friend”, “Anna jie-jie is my best friend”.
• “Thank you mommy mending my this one” when she thanked me for fixing one of her vehicle toy (1211117)

Emotional Development

• We do not have to send her separately to church for Sunday School anymore. We can finally go together and she would steadily wave goodbye to me before I handed her to her favourite 6yo jie-jie (221017).

Food and Feeding

• I am glad that she consumes lunch and dinner on a regular basis now. Occasionally, this girl would fish for praises from me if I didn't compliment her after she finishes her food. She went “next time I finish my own food, mommy comes and say – wow, Abby, so proud me (I am so proud of you)” (261017)
• We attended a dinner organised by my workplace at Borneo Cove Hotel. When daddy picked us up that night, she told daddy “Dad, mommy’s tea party so nice; got juice, fan-fan (i.e rice), nyuk-nyuk (i.e meat), but.... jelly not so nice” LOL (271017)

Her Firsts

• We had our first DIY solution for giant bubbles and had a whale of fun. Even daddy and sook-sook were taken away while playing with it. Yeh-yeh was not exceptional too. However, our first attempt wasn’t ‘stretchy’ enough. Hence, yeh-yeh surprised her with an improvised version of bubble solution (221017).
• I surprised her with a mini gumball machine and upon discovering it, she was head over heels (231017). We managed to have some educational games with it too.

Play n Learn

• After the play-dough session, I found her leaving her stuff unattended one day and I asked her to pick them up and reminded her to love her stuff. This cheeky girl finally obliged and responded “OK mama, I love you, playdough” (251017)
• We made a simple impromptu experiment on “eat ice, heart will get dirty” (how she put it). She has been asking for ice cubes from the freezer occasionally until one day I mix the ice cubes with a little of watercolour and filter with a piece of heart shaped doily paper (to serve as filter paper). In her understanding, the residue retained on the paper after filtration is the dirt retained in one’s heart after consuming ice cubes. This has worked a while for me to refrain her from asking for ice cubes (261017).
• Has a very short attention span. While she was having Lego time with daddy one day, daddy commented that she has a goldfish’s attention. This little girl then innocently replied “Oh, I like goldfish. Where?” LOL (281017)
• She has been asking “Why daddy needs a belt?” for so many times now. I finally get daddy to stand and make a demonstration to her on why daddy needs a belt. She seemed to be satisfied with my explanation this time, finally (281017). We have been explaining for countless of times, but this has usually been followed by a why after another before the same question is repeated again and again.
• Books she loved (apart from bedtime books) – Usborne see inside your body, Jack and the Beanstalk
• She was able to roughly retell the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ to earn some YouTube time (051117).
• She loves her animal matching cards, to which I have not started with her yet. She has been bringing out several pieces each time she goes out. I am going to crack my head when I have to relocate them when the time comes, only if they are still locatable (081117).
• Rather observant. We were working on a worksheet together on Buoyancy and I was unsure about an image until the little girl told me that it was a bowling ball. Although it doesn’t really look like one, she noticed the three finger holes to which mommy has totally overlooked and thought it was a button. Lol. We have brought her once for bowling when she was 1 year plus (101117).
• We have recently got an insect net and this little cheeky is looking forward to catching a butterfly soon. She convinced me and said “Me can catch. Me super strong cos me have bones inside my body” (111017)
• Sing the opposite game with daddy. When daddy sings ‘put the bunny down down down’ and she will go ‘put the bunny up up up’ etc (131117)
• When we were revising on body parts on a random occasion (161117), I casually introduce her to the Malay language. I told her that ears are called ‘telinga’ in Malay. She finds it funny and chuckled non-stop. She repeated the rest in Malay after me but by the end of the day, she remembers ‘telinga’ the best.

Records

• Went for a community service for the first time with mommy (281017)
• First time meeting baby Isaac (cousin) – 291017
• Contributed a little to the construction of the ‘Electricity House’ and was beaming proud of it- 131117
• Participated in RE Year End Performance for the second year (291017)

Fashion

• After reading many rounds of ballerina related books, she is very into all things princess these days. I put her on a white tutu dress for fitting the night before her RE Year End Performance, she cried and insisted to wear it immediately. When I reasoned to her about her performance the following day, she obliged and pick another dress with butterfly prints on it (281017).
• Many of the time, she would request to wear her ‘princess dress’ first thing in the morning or after the shower. Rejects pants and tee shirt whenever possible except for her jammies.
• Likes ponytail hairstyle only. She rejected by saying “I don’t want other hair, no bunny hair etc” (121117).

Sleeping Patterns

• I thought she was weaning off one night when she requested me to sing her songs after our bedtime stories. She requested me to sing “Give me oil in my lamp” and has been asking questions like “What is burning? Why? What is Hosanna?” before she finally asked, “why you no mode feed me bob-bob?” LOL (221017).
• Is currently into ballerina related books for bedtime stories. She called it “bandelina” (251017). On top of that, she loves The Usborne-Big Book of English Words (surprisingly not a storybook) as her bedtime fix.
• She has been very reluctant to read about other occupations besides doctor and the vet until I printed her the job cards featuring various kind of jobs. Her other favourites now are the policeman and fireman (281017).
• Daddy went outstation for almost one week. When she was with me, she has been a very alert and light sleeper. She would tag me whenever I leave the room an occasionally asking “where are you going, mommy? No go outside” She wakes up pretty easily in the morning and even manage to go for a morning walk with yeh-yeh for two days consecutively (261017)
• She insisted on her blanket to face up and spread evenly and smoothly around her body the moment she lies down. Once, she requested with a hand gesture like stretching out a roti canai on how to spread her blanket evenly (071117).
• I am glad that she loves her books. Many times, I spotted her flipping with her books and once, I caught her pretend reading and went “let me read my book first. FARM ANIMAL....” (091117).
• Recent favourite bedtime stories – Baby Dino, The Usborne Big Book of English Words (particularly page 13 and 27), Mr. Messy & Mr. Skinny (Mr.Men series).

Toilet Training

• Can safely proclaim that toilet training has been successfully achieved with no accidents and she has been quite independent to go to the potty without being prompted or whenever needed.
• Next, I am intending to train her to go on an adult toilet independent to prepare her for kindergarten. Time to source for a toilet trainer with a ladder.
• Her favourite potty-time books are “My New Potty” and “The Wide Mouthed Frog”. She can correct me accurately whenever I deliberated mistakes in my reading (101117).