He's my brother

Xuan suddenly found her little brother's gloves very interesting and wanted to wear them. She's been more or less ignoring him since he came home but today she did something sweet :) She wanted to see Chen chen sleeping on the cot and I let her sit on my lap, and she sayang-ed his head.

Right after this she turned and smiled at the camera saying "(弟弟是) 萱萱的" but Mama So stopped the camera too fast :(

Corny

Xuan likes to eat corn and raisins recently, and she can concentrate on picking the little bits for ten minutes. Usually she doesn't want to share her tibits with other people but she can be generous once in a while when she's in the mood :) By the way we think her "偶必要（我不要）" has a bit of Taiwanese slang hahaha!

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I was nursing Colin yesterday and Xuan wanted to climb onto me, but I said no, and she got upset, and continued to cling onto my back though Papa and grandma kept coaxing her to get off. Finally Papa and Mama got angry and said her name very loudly, which scared her a bit, and she finally allowed grandma to carry her away while crying. After I was done I carried her onto my lap and told her that I still love her but she must wait beside me the next time. Later on that night she suddenly came to me and kissed me on the lips, then papa, then grandma. She's usually not this affectionate.

She's just so full of surprises now :):)

Sing and dance

Papa So has taught xuanxuan how to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"!

We have a nursery chart on the door and xuan points to which ever she wants to hear, and Mama So is supposed to sing it for her. She started to identify certain songs with certain words, so even when we are not at the chart, she would say "diddle diddle" and I have to sing "Hey diddle diddle" for her. "Titter star" is "Twinkle twinkle little star", "ding dong" is "Ding Dong Bell" and "Humpty" is "Humpty Dumpty". She has other charts like "Fruits and Vegetable", "Courtesy" and "Safety", which she enjoys pointing and identifying objects. Seeing that she responds better to chart than flip books, I bought some Chinese word charts, shape chart and more Nursery Rhyme charts to pin up around the house. Now she knows "mice" is "Three Blind Mice", "Rock" is "Rock-a-bye baby", "teapot" is "I'm a little Teapot", "Baba" is "Baa Baa Black Sheep", and these are her favourites :):)

Hello Little Colin!!

Little Colin So Yi Chern sees his first daylight on 24 Oct 2008! :D:D

He was supposed to arrive only on 10Nov but decided to pop by early when Mama So's water bag burst on 24 Oct morning. After a loooonnnggg wait (10hrs in the delivery suite! But contractions only started to become painful at around noon, which was 5hrs later, and I administered epidural another hour later :P), our little boy is born!

He looks like Melody to me :)

Colin (just born)

Melody (just born)

And this is a slide show done by Kelvin to commemorate the birth of our little prince: Kenneth Xinhuan Colin

Colin's first night at home was unsettling...and kept everyone awake the whole night. Xuan slept in her own room with Papa So. We're just concerned that she gets undisturbed sleep.

Seeing little boy reminds me greatly of xuan when she was still so tiny... :) I am more confident this time, more calm, more composed. Muakks to my two beautiful children :):)

Happy Birthday Papa So! :):)

Photo shoot

A preview of the many many sweet photos we took with Kelvin J. Lim, photographer of Avenue 8. Mummy So wants to remember her big tummy, and thought that doing this shoot with my darling daughter would be memorable :):)

My amazing little girl

Xuan is starting to show some of her "terrible 2" symptoms. Being tempremental, insisting on small things like "mama sit", being cheeky about almost everything, like getting up from bed, and taking off her shoes.

Yesterday Papa So and I left her at my mom's after lunch and according to my mom, xuan continuously called out "mama, papa" as she looked at the closed door dejectedly. Ohhhhhhh :( When we came back, she clung onto me for half an hour and I felt very bad for leaving her.
Then during dinner xuan started distributing the toy golf sticks to me, my mom and herself. Xiangxiang looked on and wanted one too. I gave him mine and xuan stared. She started following xiang around saying "mama 的". (Yes! she can point to people's stuff and identify whose is that now) and I said, it's ok, I can lend it to him and u can lend your toys to others too.

At night the most amazing thing happened. She tugged at her shorts and then gave me an anxious look. She said something and started pulling my hand, so I brought her to the toilet and she peed! :D:D She is so ready to be toilet trained! :D:D

小老鼠

Anticipation of a line in a nursery rhyme. More importantly, irresistably cute "meowing"! :):):)

She is starting to string words together, like "奶奶家，爷爷家，爸爸家，妈妈家”，“Hi爷爷/bye爷爷”, "Bird, fly!"，“爱萱萱”(Funny, cos I'm trying to teach her 爱妈妈, but maybe she loves herself more hahha)

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Few nights ago, Papa So, Mama So and Melody were sitting on the bed. Somehow our little one didn't like it that Mama and Papa are sitting so close together, so she nudged her way in between us, saying "I sit, I sit!" We shifted a couple of times to "verify" that she is actually trying to "separate" us and true enough, even when she is sitting in between us, she will try to "untangle" our legs if Mama and Papa's legs were touching! :D:D

Sticker got stuck on my hand!

Xuan got herself busy transferring stickers from the table to the toy car...

Xuan in uniform!

Xuan has "graduated" from Infant to Toddler! She is now officially an NTUC childcare student! :D:D

Why not the Montessori (MMI) right beside our house, some might ask. (I'll probably wait til Little Colin "graduate" from infant group, then transfer both of them together or something) I have a friend asking me about Pat's Schoolhouse, another pondering over Nanyang Kindergarten. While I myself am very very very tempted to try out the branded pre-schools, I think good teachers play more important role than the school itself. There is also the travelling distance and financial constrain to factor in. Why stress ourselves out? Home education can make a big difference too. Kampung kids (i.e. myself :P ) can end up in branded schools as well. I think the society has yet to see the true impact of elitism amongst pre-schoolers.

Xuan at the playground

It's Children's Day and Melody had fun with her cousin Keagan at the playground! :):)

I know this looks a little scary, but I think she was actually saying "Happy!" when she slid down? She did get into a little accident on the slide too. A boy kicked her in the head while coming down and she's still at the bottom of the slide. Poor thing!

And finally, her favourite...climbing up and down the stairs! And unassisted too! :):) It puts my mind at ease cos I know that she won't fall off the stairs. She will either look for the railing or our hand for support if she can't manage the step. I also noticed that her right leg is the stronger leg.

Strong Keagan

So sweet to have a doting brother!

(P.S. I don't know how to turn the video around cos I took it with my handphone)

Jump

Jump jump jump!

Throw rubbish

My little girl helps Mama So throw rubbish and pass things to Papa So when I'm lazy :P:P

Perserverance (for both toddler and mother)

Xuan is learning how to put on her slippers. She couldn't get it on so she gets frustrated and says 鞋！鞋！It's easy when she wants to take them off, she just go 踢踢踢 and they're out. With her sandles it's a bit more tricky. She first learnt to "tear off" the velcro strip, then 踢踢踢 the shoes out, but now I teach her to push off the shoe from the the back of her foot. She's learning to feel her way out of the sleeve hole when we put on her shirt, and to pull the shirt off when we bathe her too. Requires a lot of patience, think we've been doing this for about a month already! But great achievement, I'd say!

The only difficult part is getting her to put her shoes back on the rack after she kicked them off. She used to happily put them neatly on the rack. Now whenever I say 放回去 she would purposely run off. Well I have a lot of time to spare, so I leave the shoes where they are and ask nicely the next time she passes by the shoes. Usually after a few rounds of pressing she'd put them back. Hope this cultivates some good habits in her.

Cute Meoldy

Funny how she can have so many different expressions drinking water alone (at least to me) :):):)

She is learning how to drink from a cup now. I'm wondering if I should start weaning her off the bottle for milk drinking. The last time I tried putting her milk into the cup-sprout thingy, she didn't want to take the milk. Hmmm. But I will try again. By the way this Tollyjoy bottle is so air tight that no water spills from it even when u turn it upside down.

Melody's new room!

We are turning the spare room into a toddler's room! :D Mommy So is very excited but doesn't have enough creative juice... Luckily I saw these wall stickers at HomeFix and I fell in love with it immediately!

Xuan seems to like it too cos she goes in everyday and says "花" :):)

Taking off her shoe

Xuan knows how to step in and out of her shorts and stretch out her arms as I guide the sleeve hole towards her hands. Now she's learning how to take off her shoes :):)

Diaper changing

The following scene is a little R(A) but it happens everyday......

Now even when she drops something, I ask her to pick it up, she responds with "跑跑跑" and runs away! Cheeky little fellow!

Vocab2

Recently she has been picking up words at an amazing speed. I'm trying to record down all the words she can say/recognise at the moment. Try my best to recall everything.

Family: 爷爷，爸爸，妈妈，奶奶，婆婆(credits to Papa So)，zeh zeh, 妹妹，zorzor (gorgor), 弟弟，阿姨，姨丈 (or pronounced as yi-dan at the moment), and "Eddie" without the "uncle" (picked up roughly in that order)
She understands and can point out who is: Xiangxiang, Uncle Joe, Aunty Zoey, Aunty Yirong

Animals: bird, 猫/cat, dog/wohwoh/狗, 鸭/duck, 鸡, 猪, 马, moooo (cow), 鱼，蜘蛛，bear/小熊, lizard, giraffe, frog, rooaarr (lion), ooooooooo (wolf)

Action: fly, 跑步(or "babu"), 跑跑跑 (said while running)，抱抱 (or "yee-yah!"), 走走(if she wants to come down to walk by herself)，游泳(or "yaya"), 丢/throw, 踢/kick，跌倒, up (when she goes up the stairs, or pick herself up from a fall, or when I go up a flight of stairs while carrying her), down (or "pom!" when jumping down from a chair), 跳/jump, 开, siang (sayang), shya (刷牙），洗，kiss/mmm-muck!, bye，peekaboo!(with action)，睡觉(with rather hard patting action, and the doll must be sleeping face down)，shhhh, ah-choo, 拜拜 (with the praying action, when she sees temples or 神台) , sitsit/坐
She understands: 给，躺下来，穿鞋，穿尿布/穿裤子(to which she would run away with a cheeky smile and expect me to run after her and say "抓到了！羞羞，没有穿裤子！")，吃(which she would say "mum mum" to my GREAT displeasure), 冲凉 (or pompom, again, to my GREAT displeasure), 哭 (with eye rubbing action) and her most recent word is “喝”(drink plain water from her straw bottle)

Food: Nana (banana), apple, 奶/milk, 鱼, rice, pear(she understands 梨 too)，菜, papa (papaya)

Objects: Umba (which is umbrella), 杯, star, sun, moon, ball, clock, shoe/鞋，书/book, bus, 车/car, bike, van, 树，flower/花, 灯, 暗, baby, boyboy, gerger, 衣 (she would tug at her top) , chair
she understands: 天空，云(she will point outside the window. I asked her tonight, 现在有没有太阳？she said "没有"), 风 (she would stand in front of the fan to find it)，裤子 (she would tug at her bottom), 下雨了 (she would cover her head or say "umba") , 佛(the big belly and bald ones)


Body parts: 脚，eye
she understands: 鼻子，耳朵，眼睛，嘴巴，手，头发，屁股


Words to show her needs: 必要必要必要必要 (usually said at least 4-6 times stringed together, means 不要actually), 没有，there (with finger pointing somewhere, means carry her there!), painpain, 怕怕

Words that she can read at the moment: 大，人，不 (thanks to my mum and the 治家格言on her walls), 8,1,2,5

She can count 1,2,3,4,5,(6),7,8,9,10 in chinese and english, sort of, and ABCDE (she will repeat after us from A-Z)

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Some speech patterns that I found in her:
1. She started saying "b" words first (bye, baba, ball, bird, 8, bus) and can say more "b" words.
2.She can't pronounce "g" yet. "l" too.
3. She is speaking mono-syllable words, at most 2 syllabus but not 3 (she can pronounce "ba" but she only says "nana". She can pronounce "ya" but she only says "papa")
4. I speak to her in both languages. Usually I repeat myself. She chooses the easier word of the 2 languages to vocalize
5. When I pronounce 第三声properly (down then up again, as opposed to the Singaporean way of just saying a low sound), she imitates me, which is the correct way
6. She recognise a lot of nouns, but verbs come a close second. Which means vocalizing every action and object aids in her learning.
7. With the exception of "mum mum" and "pom pom" which are the most commonly used words at the infant care and among most grandparents, she doesn't say any other baby words, and can speak the correct word (instead of "gai gai", infant care teachers say "outdoor" so she says "outdoor", or just take her shoes and linger around the door and wait for us to leave). Which really goes to show garbage in, garbage out.
8. We don't use a lot of repeated sounds (only 抱抱，拜拜，"sitsit" is said by caregivers at infant care i think, bear bear, which she prefers just "bear" or 小熊 now), and she learns all the words just as fine.
9. Strangely, she hasn't picked up colours and shapes yet. We teach her colour quite often. But it doesn't bother me.
10. My sign languages didn't work. Other than "bye" and "下雨了" she doesn't "act" out her words. But then again if she can say it, why bother signing it. I'll try signing words again with my baby boy. Boys supposedly talk later.



She's picking up words like a sponge everyday. I'm extra sensitive about the singlish/bad grammar spoken around her now. I wish people would just speak to her in Mandarin. As much as I can, I repeat the correct version/grammar so that she won't pick up too many wrong vocab. My English is not perfect but at least I got a B3 lah, hahaha :P:P