Clearing my maternity leave

Although Ethan is approaching 5 months old, Mummy still have more than 2 weeks of maternity leave to clear, cos Mummy only took 2months and 2 weeks from her annual leave last year when Ethan was born. That leaves her with 1 full month to take in the past few months.

It has been a fulfilling time with Ethan during my leave. When Caden is with us over the weekend, Mummy is not able to spend quality time with Lil Ethan as Caden demands alot of Mummy's attention. So the only time to bond with my lil one is through the leave which I can utilise 2nd half of the month, although most of the time, I have to work from home cos the work is simply never-ending. Mummy treasure these days alot with Ethan as she hardly have the time to spend with him on weekdays. Now that I have about 2 more weeks to clear, I'll need to take more pictures, talk to him before I get busy again the later part of the year..

PaPa's going to reservist

PaPa has taken out his carton of NS uniform over the weekend in preparation for his reservist next Tue. Our Caden is as usual inquisitive and following around PaPa in the storeroom.

To keep him busy, PaPa passed Caden his army hat and Caden started dancing in it...

This lil fellow is sure going to make Mummy busy in PaPa's absence next week...

Ethan has flipped on his own!

Today PaPa went off in the late morning to attend a wedding luncheon leaving Mummy with 2 little boys at home.. Mummy was hoping that things can happen as per scheduled so that she can feed Caden lunch, then feed Ethan his afternoon milk and proceed to have Mummy's own lunch thereafter.. but when it comes to children, usually, I don't get the luck..

Since I was trying to get Caden to take his afternoon nap, I brought Ethan along into his room. As I was busy disciplining our dear elder one to close his eyes, Lil Ethan was happily lying on his own on the upper deck of the bed. Before I realised, he was on his tummy enjoying the view of his brother's room. I was surprised that he could flip and decided to see this with my own eyes. And true enough. as I turned him back on his back once again, Ethan did another flip and ended on his tummy... His neck has also become stronger to hold on its own as he enjoyed viewing...




One week ago, he was trying very hard to flip by himself..



Once he learnt this new skill set, he kept practising and practising and practising, so meaning both PaPa and Mummy are busy now keeping an eye on him..

The Leap Year

Today is the 29th of February, which only occur once every 4 years, which is also know as the leap year. Under the good old days when we are only twosome, I would have suggested spending this day doing something different. However, being a parent again changes your life as one don't have the luxury to do stuff as and when you like.

Anyways, we had a bad scare last night when we read a letter from Caden's childcare which stated an outbreak of HFMD of 8 children on Monday! As we didn't bring Caden to school on Tue and Wed, and continued to send him over on Thurs, we were so worried that he may caught the remains of the virus from the centre. PaPa checked him on thurs night when he's back from work and found 2 red spots on the inner lips. He quickly summoned Mummy back from her boss's dinner treat at Noble house as he broke the bad news. As I rushed back in the cab, my mind was fully occupied with the times that Caden would probably have spent with Ethan and worried that Ethan may be a victim as well.

My ah lou came back from the PD eventually and said its a false alarm. Although Caden has not been diagnosed to date, we decided to quarantine him from ethan as far as possible just to play safe. So today I stayed at home to take care of Caden while I work half-time at home.

So just like any usual Friday, we are now relaxing at home and me hoping that Caden is willing to let PaPa accompany him to sleep later..

Grandma is on leave

My mother-in-law has happily left for the day to enjoy a sumptuous hi-tea spread with my father-in-law yesterday. As I had planned to utilise my remaining one month maternity as I can, I am tasked to baby-sit the rest of the children in the house for the afternoon. I have done this once just 2 weeks ago, and thought there shouldn't be a problem doing it again yesterday.

Kimi wasn't too cooperative, it was tiring getting her to take her afternoon nap. She was moody after she came back from school, not looking for Grandma, but rather wanted her Mummy or Daddy to come back again(this happened 2 weeks ago). I have to sms her Daddy to get him to call home and ask her to sleep.. in the end, after attempting for almost 4 hours, I gave up the idea.

Caden was super-cooperative, surprisingly, he slept from 130pm till almost 5pm, where I have to wake him up so that he will not have a problem getting to sleep at night.. Ethan was good too, he has to be woken up from his sleep to take a scheduled milk feed which has been exceeded by 1 hour.

I had planned to be a Chinese teacher by bringing along a book, the children obviously took no interest in that and kept bugging me to play Barney for them to watch. In the end, I gave in cos I need to be busy feeding Ethan again.

My MIL came back later that night looking very happy, she commented that this could be her one and only hi-tea in her life.. if there's another chance, I think I'll probably sponsor them to do another round later this year.

Terrrrrible 2

We often hear stories about the Terrible 2 stage of a toddler, and I thought I was lucky that Caden was a disciplined child since he turns 2 last April. However, this little child of mine went into horrible tantrums lately, especially when he saw how we paid attention to Ethan. Caden loves to negotiate. When we gave him ample time to prepare him for his afternoon nap, eg, after you have finished watching Hi-5, it's time to sleep - he'll say ok. But when the programme finished, he starts to ask for more again or he'll say," I want to play for 5 mins."

We usually don't give in to unreasonable demands or negotiate. It's especially tempting in public to cave in as a way of ending the episode. Often we don't worry about what others think — anyone who's a parent has been there before. By conceding, I know that i'll be teaching him that pitching a fit is the way to get what he wants, and setting the stage for future behavior problems.

So how do we handle this? Put him in the quiet corner for a time-out till he stop crying. then he'll be released and do whatever that we have asked him to do.. Every weekend is chaotic, there is so far no one day he leave us in peace and not put him in the quiet corner. Just hope he'll outgrown this bad behavior problems by the time he turns 3.

Ethan becomes Botak

Finally, we managed to bring Ethan to the hair salon downstairs to have a good shave of his patchy hair this Sunday, 2 days after he turns 4 months. His cradle cap is still in existence to date, so hopefully this shave can really help to eliminate the condition quickly. Ethan was calm and quiet when the shave is taking place, didn't struggle any bit at all. We were pretty impressed with his calmness and the shave was done in no time. He definitely looks cuter having a botak head and his Grandma commented that he resembles very much of Caden now that the curly hair is taken off.


Day before the shave




During the shave