It has been a while!! Sorryz….

Many fans of this blog have hunted us over the past weeks for having kept silent for so long on this blog…a big apology to everyone…it’s all the mother’s fault =P

(…guess who took all the pictures…?)

Anyway, you must be wondering how our little girl has been these months?

She has definitely grown.  We know that because she outgrown her previous set of shoes.  We bought her a new pair recently, it is one of those that squeaks.  She enjoyed the squeaking sound a lot, and will intentionally stamp her feet to hear those sounds =)  My mum’s been complaining about how the sounds would impact Jan’s hearing though…but well…

Oh…and I forgot to mention, Jan is walking and walking and walking and walking nowadays!  Hmm…looks like I really haven’t blogged here for a long while, ‘cos I thought I should have mentioned that already.  Anyway, sometime in mid-August, she started walking more than crawling, and nowadays she barely crawls.  She enjoys going out for walks very much, and would get very excited when we put on her shoes for her.

Check out these cool photos!

Left behind…

Well, Jan’s gonna be left behind for a week while we are on our missions impact trip to Taiwan, Miaoli from 11-17 Aug.

The decision to go on a missions trip was not a difficult one as it was quite a loud and clear command from God to “GO!”. However, the thought of being separated from Jan for a week was a tad too long for me to bear. To prepare her mentally, we’ve been telling her about the trip and that we’ll not be able to see her for a week. Not that she can’t go with us, but we figured it would be better if she stayed home so that we can focus on doing God’s work. I’ll definitely bring her along when she’s slightly older :)

It’s been amazing how God has prepared the way for us so that we are able to leave for the trip in peace:

1. Mum was willing to take care of Jan while we are away;

2. SQ had a 2-to-go promotion so the airfare was actually quite comparable to budget airline;

3. I managed to take leave even though it was a busy period at work for me.

Thank God for his favour!

Before we left for the airport, we took some pictures of Jan monkeying with our luggage, toddling around the house and exploring the box of her new hi-fi set (which Papa managed to set it up within half an hour… amazing!!).

I was fighting back my tears as I left the house. It didn’t help when mum called to say that Jan was knocking at my room door when she woke up from her morning nap calling out for mama. She actually cried when mum told her that we are not home and have left for Taiwan! It does make me wonder if she really did understand.

We’ll miss you little girl and see you back home SOON!

p.s. Do pray for us whenever you think about us! :)

Long overdue review with PD

Jan's supposed to do her 1-year-old review with the PD but being the procrastinating parents (papa's fault), we just conveniently waited for the appt with the NUH PD today. It was actually fixed more than 6 months ago and we had absolutely no clue if she's due for any vaccine - faint!

So, at 13.5mths, Jan's vital stats are (drum roll)
Height - 77cm
Weight - 9.6kg (the blur parents actually thought she weighs barely 9kg)

Hmmm... she actually belongs to the 75th percentile! Thank God for the growth :)

The PD went on to perform some developmental milestone checks. Cheeky Jan started blowing at the light that the PD used to check her eyes, thinking that it is a candle! Faint! Nonetheless, the PD was quite impressed with the number of words that Jan could speak!

1. Papa
   
2. Mama
   
3. 爷爷
   
4. 奶奶
   
5. 外婆
   
6. 舅舅
   
7. 电视


8. 眼镜


9. 美美


10. 姐姐


11. 抱抱


12. 怕怕 (taps her chest when she's scared)


13. banana (one of her favourite fruits)


14. apple


15. pear


16. baby


17. lion
    
18. star (her favourite song - twinkle twinkle little star)


19. bear (her favourite soft toy)


20. hair (pulls her hair while she says this)


21. nose


22. ear


23. taxi


24. car


25. tortoise


26. cheese


27. please


28. men-men (she still can't say amen)

She can also recognise some words and say them as well:

1. Mmmm


2. Ooooh


3. Aaaah
   
4. Ssssh


5. duck

We've been letting Jan play with stacking cups and she's been quite good at it. She would also automatically start clapping, singing and dancing when she hears music. Maybe she's musicaly inclined?? She enjoys putting her toys away too! Other than taking a looooooooong time to finish her milk (sometimes, it takes her an hour to finish her milk feed!!), she's relatively easier to care for now that she's older and able to communicate her needs.

Looking forward to better days ahead!! :)

Jan Hits the Road!

We were originally waiting for Jan to master her walk without support before taking her on a road test, but then one day I had an ah-ha moment--for safety sake, I would still hold her hand when she's walking, so why wait?

As such, a few days ago, Jan started her first steps outside the house.  Indeed, one small step for man, one giant leap for Jan-kind (haha...more like for the parents)

Anyway, one interesting development is Jan started associating her shoes with the phrase "美美" (i.e. pretty).  The reason being that when we first put those shoes on for her, we pointed to her that the shoes were very pretty.  As a result, she would go "美美" when we mention her shoes.

Back to the main topic, Jan's walk outside the house progressed quite rapidly.  I started with a short walk on the corridor outside the house, and in no time we started bringing her for longer walks downstairs.  I think she has grown to like walking, as at times she would be tugging me around instead of me leading her.  Looking forward to her walking even more steadily!

Jan’s first steps

For a long while, Jan has been walking around, but she always need to hold on to something, like to her toy car or to a chair.  Because of that, many of us had made wrong predictions of when she will be able to walk unassisted.  Jan just seem to be delaying that milestone again and again, and we concluded that she found no value in that new skill, since walking seemed so much slower than her crawling (come to my house one day and leave the kitchen door open…before you can catch your next breath, she would have emptied all the kitchen cabinets).  In fact, she crawls so much that I think she clocks at least 1km of crawling every day!  Anyway, on Jan’s not walking, I wasn’t too anxious as I was dying to have a kid running around in the house yet.

Above: Jan’s photo taken in late May of her pushing her toy car.  She also likes to push the dining chair and sometimes the stand fan…

One day before her birthday, Jan took her first and ONLY unassisted step…*sigh*…was she trying to do the minimum so that her parents can proudly wear the “kid walked before one” badge?  Over the past few weeks, we coaxed her to take more steps.  Now she has achieved a 800% improvement.  Impressive ya?  That means she doubled every week!  At this rate, she will be able to walk 4,503,599,627,370,496 steps when she reaches two!!! (ok, bad joke.  But if you are laughing, then you are not any less geeky than I am)

Exploring the new bridges

We went to explore the bridges connecting HortPark to Mount Faber.  Before I went, I thought: two bridges, no big deal.  Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised.  The bridges helped create a very nice trail, and better still, this trail is close to my place!

The trail was also very stroller friendly, so we would highly recommend it to families with young children.  Even if you don’t fit this category, it is still a nice trail to walk, run and maybe blade??

We started at HortPark (along Alexandra Rd) and ended at Mount Faber.  The drivers caught a cab back to the starting point when we got to the Henderson Waves Bridge.  The only trouble with starting at HortPark is that there is a steep climb when you are about to reach telok blangah HILL park.  So if you want to avoid, you can try to drive up to the park and find parking there.  There aren’t a lot of lots but we spotted a number of vacant lots.  I guess many people didn’t know about those parking spots.

 

I recommend doing a picnic on Henderson waves!  Go early in the morning or near sunset time

Check out all the photos on our web album.

Jan’s 1st Brithday

Jan turned ONE last Sunday!  We held a birthday party for her on Saturday at our place.  Check out her dress and birthday cake!  Though uncoordinated, they turned out to be amazingly harmonious in colour and style!

Her birthday cake also turned out to be much nicer than we expected.  We spent many hours trying to confirm the design, and when we did, neither of us had a good idea of how it will look like in the end, ‘cos we mixed elements from a few designs.  When I saw the cake on the actual day, I loved it!  A lot of kudos should go to my wife and her colleague Lawrence.  My wife for picking the cute bear, and Lawrence for helping us bring the bear to the cake shop a few days in advance.  I believe the cake makers drew inspiration from the bear and put together the final sweet-looking cake.

Pei Tze’s aunt also made a very cool looking jelly cake.  This, like the cake, exceeded my expectations.  I attribute it to the clever addition of garnishes like the deer, the fence, the plants and the “grass”.  Pei Tze added a final, genius touch to it…she put the jelly on a piece of glass (take from our TV console…), and that just up the class by several notches!

 

There was a lot of preparations to be done.  But thanks to the many pairs of hands that came to help, we managed to set up in time.

 

In almost no time, the guests began arriving!  Imagine the frenzy we were in…thank God most of the things went well.

 

There were also a lot of babies and toddlers...you might actually think we were running a nursery.  Fortunately, we had a play yard in the living room.

It didn't take long before the house was overflowing with people.  We estimated that there were 50+ adults and about 10 kids in the house!!

Thankfully, we had a huge area outside our house, which is rather unusual for HDB flats.  We were able to fit the catered food and a make-shift canteen in this corridor space.

    

The high point of the celebration was marked by the cake-cutting.  Jan probably did not understand what was going on.  I on the other hand, was awestruck when I realised that so many people were celebrating the birthday of a one-year-old!!  I then understood that it was really not just a birthday party, but a day where we celebrate the victory of surviving the first year of parenthood! ;-)

Well, we are definitely very thankful for how God has seen us through this past year, of how He has provided and protected us.  Happy 1st Birthday my little girl!