Bedtime Conversations

When you are held hostage in your sons' room every night (at least till they fall asleep), you get the privilege of listening in to their conversations which can be pretty stinking cute sometimes! Here's a couple tonight:

Dyl: I'm your best friend in the whole wide world right Gor Gor?
Kay: Yes but just now we fight...
Dyl: Ya and I cried like a gorilla neh neh pops!

Me: *ROFL!!!*

Kay: Good night Dylan!
Dyl: Good night Kayden poot poot!
Kay: Hey! I not your best friend already, Dylan Seow the backside man!
Dyl: Oi! I don't be your best friend already you keep calling me Dylan!

*Dylan only likes to be called Di Di or Dyl Dyl by his brother :p*

So there you have it, the things brothers say before they sleep, I wonder what the conversations will be like 10 years later. I will update here if I am still invited to their room then, haha! Good night everybody!

Happy 4th Birthday Kayden!

To my lovely firstborn,

You are 4 today! How quick the past year flew by. From a terribly shy 3 year old, you have now emerged out of your shell and are so talkative that it drives those around you crazy with your incessant chatter and questions :p Your vocab is superb and I just look at you in awe sometimes when you use words that I have never taught you before or when you string together sentences with whatever words you know in order to make us understand you.

You are kind and sensitive. While watching a documentary on elephants the other night, I explained to you that the baby elephant died soon after birth as it was too weak. You were silent and watched as the mummy elephant gave her dead baby a nudge then shed tears as she walked away to rejoin the herd. I hear you silently sobbing then suddenly you bawled your lungs out! It took a good few minutes for me to calm you down. How cute are you? :)

However I've noticed that you are also capable of being a bully. At your birthday pool party, you were enjoying yourself going down the pool slide but as you were slow, the kid behind you knocked onto your back and after you both landed in the water, I saw you turned around and pushed the kid angrily. That was the first time I see you react this way. Maybe it's a survival trait but I do not like it and gave you a warning. I hope you will be more peace loving among your peers. So far we have not heard any bad news from the school so keep it up baby!

The obsession you have with cows for the past year is finally wavering and you are beginning to take an interest in other animals now like the elephant, sharks and crocodiles. You still have the memory of an elephant and I hope you will always remember that your mummy loves you very much although I have to spend more time taking care of didi. Today you reminded me of the dead baby elephant, you say, "Mummy, the baby elephant was two weeks then it die already, then the mummy elephant cry." I didn't understand and kept asking you why two weeks? Was it two weeks ago we saw the programme? Did you mean the baby elephant died two weeks ago? After you kept repeating a few times I finally understood! You remembered what I explained to you about why the baby elephant die, that it was "too weak"! Hahaha, your daddy and I laughed when we finally figured it out :p

You like to announce out of the blue, "Mummy, I want to tell you something!" Then you will wait patiently for me to say, "What?" to which you will reply, "I love you!" Awwww, it always melts my heart :D You also love your baby brother "so so very much" as you like to tell us before kissing him 100 times on the sole of his feet with loud smooching sounds. Yes, that's your favourite spot for kissing your didi. It's hilarious seeing you kiss him like that, it's like an addiction! You are extremely protective of your little brother too especially when we are out of the house. When I let go of didi's hands while walking with him outdoors, your face will tense up tight as you scream for me to hold him, the look on your concerned face fearing that your brother will somehow disappear if I let go of his hands :s

Some annoying quirks you have picked up includes:
1. You will start crying each time the DVD you are watching is ending and you will shout in a panic to either of us to switch to the TV channel for you.
2. You eat so slooooooooooooooowly, each meal takes at least 30mins to an hour! It's especially frustrating as your father and I are fast eaters.
3. When you pass urine at night before you sleep, you will ask your daddy or me to hold your "kukujiao" for you instead of doing it yourself. Yes, only at night. In the day you can hold it yourself :s
4. Whatever baby is playing with at that moment, you HAVE to go snatch it from him just to make him wail for it. Arrgh!
5. You like to make a silly funny face each time we ask you to smile for the camera :p

As parents, we love you because of all these quirks and not despite of them. But please try and eat faster la! ;) And don't bully your didi ok? kekeke

I hope you enjoyed your day out with Mummy and baby today watching the movie UP and here's wishing you many many many more HAPPY BIRTHDAYS my son!

love, hugs and kisses,
mummy

One more month...

Of cos the big news leading up to his 11th month was that Dylan walked! And curiously about the same time as big brother too. We haven't been able to stop him since, it's walk walk walk all day long and I must say he's really steady from day 1, no fall forward accidents or anything like that. If he loses his balance or had to fall, it will be sitting down. He's like Momo (our cat), he knows how to fall without injuring himself. Amazing this boy :D I am so proud :)

And he shocked me too a few days ago, I was introducing him to a wind up duck toy during his bath, saying,"Look Dylan, it's a duck!" and he went (in that oh so cute little voice) "A duck!". I was stunned for a moment and got him to repeat it and he did! So off I ran to get the camera but knowing in my heart that he probably will not repeat it and all I have to boast about will be my account of the incident :s Flashes of people nodding their head in mock belief came to me BUT ho ho ho! he did repeat it for the camera and well, just watch the video!



He also has a thing about doors shutting in his presence. If we go into a room and shut the door with him outside, he will give a blood curdling scream and start crying his eyes out! This never fails to happen each time I go into the bathroom to take a bath. He will cry and scream outside the door like I have left him for dead. Same thing happens when I have to bring out the garbage and shut the main gate. What can I say, my boy loves me :)

All these developments are also making me nervous, signalling to me his birthday is approaching. Arrgh my problem now is I can't schedule his birthday party before the actual day and they say it's no good to celebrate after. The weekend after we come back from Perth is already booked with shoots, the following weekend we will be busy manning our booth at the Motherhood Exhibition and the weekend after that his birthday would have past already! How? :( Sigh, maybe it's destined my poor son will not have a grand 1st birthday party like his big brother did. I think I will just organise a small one on his actual day (which is a weekday) and get him a nice cake and take plenty of pictures of course. The more I think about it, the more guilty I feel, so unfair to Dylan. Arrgh!

Don't worry son, Mummy will think of something. Hope you will have a great vacation with us in Perth next week! Please go easy on us! :D

Rain & Cows @ Bottle Tree Park

We brought the kids to the Bottle Tree Park and it poured :s Couldn't do the "long kang" fishing so we'll go back again. Lunch at the restaurant was unexpectedly alright, "zhi cha" style. I recommend the banana fritter thingy, forgot the name :p













While waiting out the rain, we saw a couple of "cows" pulling a carriage! Kayden the cow maniac was obviously excited to see them so we took some shots there while it drizzled. There's another part of the park which had dinosaur "fossils" but it wasn't sheltered so we can't get to it.









Since the rain took our fun away, we let Kayden have some fun as our photographer for the day, here is a collage of the shots he took! At first it was all headless and tilted shots hahaha then he got the hang of it and managed to take a really straight shot (2nd shot from bottom left)! He even took me nursing Dylan and an arty farty shot of his own feet! Not bad ya? ;)


All shots taken with the Lumix.

The mischievous one

I'm so guilty that I've not been posting about Kayden so here's an update :)

Since my last post on him regarding my suspicion of him having selective mutism, he has made marked improvements in his social skills. During the parents teachers meeting yesterday, Ms Juliana (his form teacher) told us that he is very mischievous and chatty in class and since the last assessment, "he has shown tremendous improvement in his social, emotional and language skills. He is very expressive when relating his experiences to his teachers and friends". You have no idea how happy that made Erwin and I :D HURRAY! He's normal!

Kayden loves to talk back now which gets annoying at times and hilarious on other occasions. When we tell him to stop being a copycat, he will retort with,"Stop being a copydog, copycow, copydonkey." etc :s His vocabulary is also astounding and we are constantly surprised by the words he knows. Example, he likes to touch the bonnet of this green car in our block and one time when he touched the car, Erwin asked him if it's hot or cold to the touch. He replies,"It's warm." :p He is starting to stop referring to himself as a third person. He used to refer to himself as Kayden this Kayden that. Now he is learning to say "myself", "yourself" etc.

Music is still very much in him. After hearing any song once, he picks it up just like that and is able to sing or hum the tune the next time he hears it. It's really amazing. Currently he can sing to Queen, Rihanna's "Disturbia" and Pink's "Rockstar" and all the other regular nursery rhymes of course. Here's a clip of him singing Norah Jones' "Don't Know Why" :p



They say the child's mind is very imaginative and I never knew how much till I had children. Kay will draw a big irregular shape with a blue colour pencil and when I asked what it was, he will say,"It's a big blue whale!" Of course it looks nothing like a whale but to him it's probably the best looking whale ever :p Looking at the picture below, I don't think you can guess what the items are, the thin green piece of playdoh is a "small roti prata", next to that is a bunch of "broccoli". The next picture shows a "big cake" and an "aeroplane" :s





One time he excitedly ran out of the room to tell me the dog and the pig and the cow and the sheep are eating his lego, I followed him to his bed and saw this:

Flipping Four

My baby boy is 4 months old today! In the week leading up to this day, he has been sleeping less, crying and drinking more, shedding his lovely locks and *drum roll* he has learnt to flip all by himself!!! Clever boy :D He's different from other babies who flip from their backs to front, this fella flips the other way because 95% of his time is spent being on his tummy (yes, he still loves to sleep and ONLY sleeps in this position).

In my frustration at not being able to capture his flips and hearty chuckles on video with my N73 or iPhone, I went out and bought the Lumix DMC-LX3 today after my last shoot at the studio (which was another marathon saturday, 6 shoots! I'm poofed out)! I can't wait to test out the HD video function on this nifty camera :)

Now that he has reach his 4th month, I am trying to recall if I started Kayden on solids at this age? hmmm, I think it should be 6 months before we should introduce solids ya? Good lord, my memory is failing me. But anyhow, I think he's still quite healthy and chubby and shall wait another month or so before I start him on solids.

He is starting to be very observant of his surroundings, due to his rapidly developing eyesight. In the car, he will check out the prints on the car seat, staring hard till he's crossed eyed. Even the sunlight falling onto the car door panels will cause him to stare and try to touch them with his little fingers which are now very good at pinching you or grabbing a bunch of your hair! Watch out! :p

The Quinny Buzz I bought him a couple months ago has gone largely unused as he screams bloody murder each time we try to put him in it! pffft! I was thinking, what a good waste of $888 :s Then last week we discovered that he will not protest if we put the seat upright! Why didn't we try that earlier duh!

He's talking more now, loudly even but no real meaningful words as yet which I can pick out. Oh actually there's a couple, it's "Hi!" and "Harrooo". I swear he says hi because a few of my clients have tried to talk to him during their shoots and he has responded with "hi" a few times to their astonishment hahaha! Oh in case you are wondering, he sleeps in a playpen that's in the studio area near the props shelf. The other day a Bloom client's husband was innocently sitting near the playpen watching his wife as I shot her when he heard some shuffling (that's Dylan shaking his butt while he sleeps) coming from there. He peered into the pen and exclaimed, "Is that a real baby?!?!" Wah lau, of course la! Hahahah!

Some quirks of my sweet boy:
- Before bathtime, when I pull your onesie over your face, you will smile as the fabric goes over your face :)
- You will cry most pitifully (and loudly) when I (or anybody) raise my voice or when another baby cries.
- When we roll you over onto your back after you awake, your face will light up with joy and you will wriggle your fat body as your laugh and coo to us. This is SO TOTALLY ADORABLE! I call this your happy dance :D
- When I kiss your tummy or under your chin, you will break up in chuckles and guffaws. I can't help doing this for at least a few minutes because I love to hear you laugh!
- After night feeds when I don't turn you back onto your tummy, you will sometimes wake up and make sure I do by giving some short cries for help or kicking me. Usually as I turn you over, you will give out a little burp.
- Talking about burps, you gave some of your loudest ones this month!

The Ice-Cream Poke the Elephant

We were watching a program on tv and Kayden was reading a book when he announced to us,"The ice-cream poke the elephant!". Erwin was like, huh? Thought we heard wrongly, then he said it clearly and loudly again,"The ice-cream poke the elephant!". Our eyes went down to where he was pointing in the book and this was what we saw:



bwahahahahahha! :D
(some of my friends don't get it, so here's the explaination. the tusk of the elephant is seen as "ice-cream" by my son becoz of it's cone shape)

Some other funny moments I try and recall now...

One time my nose was runny and I asked him to take a tissue for me, he saw the mucus dripping down my nose and remarked,"Oh! Mummy's nose cry!" kekeke

Whenever he shits and his daddy is cleaning him up, Erwin will say "too much poot poot" and "damn smelly". We didn't expect K's first "bad" word to be "damn" :p Now whenever he passes motion, he will say loudly for all to hear,"Too much poot poot! Damn smelly!" We sure kennah from the Ah Gong when he hears this :s

If he sees Dylan breastfeeding, he will say,"Baby drinking neh-neh milk!". This is fine at home, but when we are outdoors, it is an uninvited announcement :p Worse when he continues with his commentry,"Mummy got neh neh, Daddy no neh neh, Kayden no neh neh and Baby got neh neh." I don't know why he thinks Dylan has "neh neh". Maybe too chubby :D He also knows that Daddy, Baby & himself "have ku ku jiao" and Mummy "no ku ku jiao" :s

As he is still quite shy in front of strangers, we will try to let him know before we meet someone that he should greet them by saying,"Hello Uncle or Hello Aunty" and not to be shy. However when he meets them, he will shy away by hanging his head and avoiding eye contact. Then when we are alone with him again he will say,"Uncle/Aunty is so shy!" *bangs wall*

17-35 - test shots

I guess you cannot take what I have posted below as true test shots as I did some post processing to the images. It takes more effort and creativity to shoot portraits with a wide angle. Obviously you have to avoid putting your subjects too close to the edges as this will cause them to distort unglamourously :p However, it's interesting when you get subjects up close yet have a sense of what's going on behind them due to the wide angle perspective.



In case you are wondering why there's no ball in the shot, it's the sand he's kicking at!






These are Dylan's feet.








Kayden asking the zillionth question for the day :s Since he turned 3, it's been why this, why that? It gets really annoying after like the 3rd question is been repeated 10 times.

The Good Brother

If the way he treats Momo (our cat) is anything to go by, we were expecting Kayden to be a very jealous brother. We were most pleasantly surprised when he turned out to be just the total opposite!

He would come back from school and greet his little brother on the bouncer (he don't call him Didi, but Baby) by announcing loudly to all at home,"Oh! Baby sleeping!" He also likes to play "Name the Body Parts" on Dylan, starting from the head (ok sometimes he pats Dylan's head too forcefully, the little oaf that he is hehe), down to the toes (his favourite part). He would also kiss baby or play nose to nose with him.



Kayden is also more mature now and listens when we reason with him. We took his beansprout pillow for Dylan and although he was unhappy, he didn't act out, what he did was to give me a pout whenever he sees the baby using the pillow. I noticed this and said sorry to him and asked if we could borrow his pillow for baby? He stopped pouting, nodded his head and said,"Kayden give blue pillow to baby." Awww!

Another concern i had was breastfeeding. As i breastfed Kayden till he was 21 months, some of my friends warned that when he sees Dylan nursing, feelings of jealousy might surface. Turned out they were wrong. When he sees baby nursing, all he says is,"Baby drinking neh neh milk!" hehe :D Then the other day i was in the kitchen when he rushes in and worriedly says to me,"Mummy! Put back white on baby." i was wondering what he meant when he stretched out his hand to show me a white mitten dropped by the baby. Only after i wore the mitten on baby's hand did he revert back to his happy self, ha! what a loving brother :)



Granny would tease him by saying,"I bring baby back with me ok?" to which Kay will shout loudly,"NO!". He was sitting on my lap the other day when Dylan started crying, he swiftly jumped off and said to me,"Baby cry, need Mummy bao bao." Meaning that baby needs mummy to carry. I would then beam proudly at this firstborn of mine who has grown so much as a person.

Here are some shots of Dylan with his eyes open at last! Sometimes too wide!

Hip Hop Bobbing Boi

Thought you guys might enjoy another video of my son dancing. I think he's got some black genes in him, check out his hip hop moves ;)

I Shower Solo

<<< CAUTION! Video contains nudity >>>

Kayden likes to shower solo nowadays, even wipes himself dry quite well. Here he shows you how he towel dry his armpits, kukujiao (penis) and bum :)

the 9 endearing ways of my firstborn

1. at night when we are all on the bed and i happen to close my eyes before he does, he will pat Mummy to sleep like how i would pat him to sleep as a baby :p

2. time to pnong pnong Kayden! he will correct me and say "shower" :s then he will recite these 3 sentences, "Take out shirt, take out shorts, take out pam pams (pampers)."

3. he will say hello and bye bye to everything, eg. Hello Plant! Bye Bye Plant! grandparents who keep calling are not spared, he will say hello then bye bye immediately to cut them short kekeke

4. he’s a walking TVC jingle jukebox, currently his favourite jingle is the Sony Bravia tvc where the colourful threads are thrown down a mountain.

5. after singing the Happy Birthday song, he will pretend to blow out a candle (his finger) and then proceed to feed you imaginery cake to which you must pretend to gobble down with gusto!

6. when i come out from the shower, he will bring me my pajamas and spectacles.

7. on cold nights, he will sleep curled up like a fat prawn, too cute :D

8. he dances each time he hears music with beats, the sort of dance those big african american ladies from Louisiana are famous for (sort of like a fat bottomed turkey bobbing up and down hahaha)

9. he MUST hold mummy’s hand in one hand and daddy’s hand in the other before going into the lift, sometimes the 3 of us get stucked at the door this way :s

Mr Vocabulary

Last week my son farted and it stinked terribly so i asked him, "Kayden, did you poot poot?". He replied, "Mummy, i want to pass motion."! Wow! i was shocked and surprised at his reply! So clever, he must have learnt it in school. i was in for more surprises throughout the week as his vocab extends and his verbal communicating skills improve by leaps and bounds :)

We were having dinner at Mac's and he was having a fun time dipping the fries into the ketchup before feeding Daddy with them. i was seated across the table from the both of them and asked if Mummy can have a fry too? He happily obliged and dipped a new fry into the ketchup and tried to feed me across the table but his little arm was too short. He said to me, "Cannot reach!". Both Erwin and me looked at each other in astonishment as this was the first time he used these words and phrase them together in a sentence! ok ok, it's not really a sentence but still we were impressed :D

While watching the last episode of House, i was tearing from a touching scene when Kayden walked out of the room and saw me. He remarked, "Oh, Mummy crying." Then he corrected himself as i wiped the tears from my eyes, "Mummy's eyes cry." Haha! Aiyoh my son is super cute :p

I was eating a tuna bun for breakfast when he came up to me and i guess i must have fishy breath. He looked at me with that cherubic face and said matter of factly: "Mummy eat fish bread."

There've been many instances of him mimicking us recently so we try to watch our language around him. One of the cuter imitations is him saying, "Momo lai loh!". i always say this when my cat Momo is about to walk into the bedroom which is out of bounds to him. So now whenever Momo approaches the bedroom door, Kayden will mimic my phrase and tone and announce loudly Momo lai loh!!!

He will also put the word "favourite" in front of everything he likes now. Eg, favourite cow shirt, favourite blue shorts, favourite book etc.

Kayden's speak:
chaklat - chocolate
ahnagh ahnagh nah nah - to sleep
ehderphant - elephant
du want - don't want
VVD - DVD
pretti patah - roti prata
cow car - his cow tricycle toy
wei wee bird - ladybird
bar bah fly - butterfly
orange rice/noodles - nasi goreng/mee goreng
copter - helicopter
hole bread - donut
tebby bear - teddy bear
fiss - fish