Jonah's 1st Christmas

It's the last day of 2007 - I can't believe how fast time flies! In a blink of an eye Jonah is already 7+ months old, learning to crawl and stand... he's definitely the unbeatable 'high' of my year :) The little tyke has had a busy month - he's attended 4 birthday parties and 5 xmas parties and still counting...A big "Thank You!" to everyone who has showered your sayang-ness on Jonah - very much appreciated :)

What's the first thing Jonah does with his presents - taste them of course!! :P Most of the time he's more interested in the wrapping paper than the actual gift, but mommy is grateful to the generous aunties and uncles who have contributed to his treasure chest of toys and goodies.
And he's obsessed with standing up. Every chance he gets he'll leverage on something and pull himself up... and he's so excited and happy every time he stands up...I want to scold him but one look at his happy face and I'm suckered. So I can't leave him alone for 1 minute for fear of him falling over and hitting his head. Which works out fine coz he cries when he doesn't see anyone around...he'll wail and crawl his way to the kitchen to look for me when I go prepare his food :) I know it's unhealthy for him to be so dependent, but it's just soooooooo cute!

Here's wishing one and all a very Happy New Year and a wonderful year ahead!!

Party season...

Tis the season for parties and gatherings...For a 7-month old baby, Jonah sure has a busy social life - He's already been to several baby parties (play dates, first year birthdays etc) and with Christmas around the corner, there are even more parties to schedule!! Mommy is tired!!

He's beginning to show signs of crawling now...going backwards is his speciality. He can't really move 1 leg in front of the other, so he tries to pull both legs together and launches forward, usually ending up on his face. And the scary part is he's learning how to pull himself up to a standing position - so afraid that he's going to fall over! Must start baby-proofing the house but where to start???

Milestones...

A couple of weeks ago I took a week off work in a bid to clear some of my leave from last year...also becoz both sets of grandparents decided to take holidays that week lah. So I decided to try my hand at full time parenting with that week solely devoted to Jonah - man, it was exhausting!!! Kudos to all the full-time mummies out there! It's a lot tougher than going to work coz kids need your 24/7 attention!

But it was good timing coz Jonah had just turned 6 months, and I decided to take the opportunity to introduce him to a couple of firsts - semi-solids and swimming. So being the eager beaver mommy that I was, I bought the Nestle rice cereal and pureed apple with my newly acquired blender, thinking that Jonah would be soooooo happy to try new food. Boy was I wrong. He refused to open his mouth for the baby spoon, clamping his lips tightly shut. Cereal and apple got everywhere except into his mouth. So we tried all ways to make him open his mouth - making funny faces so that he'd laugh, trying to get him to goo and gaa...Once the food got into his mouth he'd eat it, but he just refused to open his mouth for it! 2 weeks later and we're still trying to feed him his cereal - he just seems contented with milk and water...

Luckily he was a lot more receptive to swimming. Brought him to SGCC and he was quite the happy water baby...relaxing in his float and trying to walk in the water. Think we'll be hanging out at the pool a lot more :)

Success!

Yatta! I had my first solo outing with Jonah and it went smoothly, thank goodness. Brought him to Novena Square to meet Gerry and Esther for coffee and he was such a good boy that day. It was his first time in his new child seat and I was so afraid that I had to deal with a crying fussing baby whilst driving. But he just sat there quietly playing with his toy and stoning out the window.

And he was in a good mood during coffee too, curious about everything and letting the 2 aunties carry him. On the way home he was so comfy in his child seat that he actually fell asleep in it :) Yay! It was a great day :)

Madshu graciously extended his hospitality to some colleagues to spend the Sat afternoon as his funky bachelor pad - once to taste Yusma's yummy chilli crabs and once for Hari Raya Puasa. He's a great party host - organised, prepared and loads of fun. Can double up as childcare centre and relak corner too...very useful when we move to Fusionopolis :) Brought Jonah on both occasions and he got his fair share of manja from everyone:

Back from Kimchi-land

I'm glad to announce that me and about 35 packets of milk made it back safely from Pusan :) It wasn't such a bad experience, only got stopped once at Seoul Incheon Airport and had to explain why I was carrying a cooler bag with an ice-brick and several bottles of milk on board. The funny thing was that the problem was with the ice-brick and not the milk but then again, with the breakdown in communications....But they were nice enuf to let me pass with all in tact. Everything else I froze using the hotel's freezer and packed into 3 cooler bags with many ice-bricks in my check-in luggage which came up to 30.3kg. Huffed and puffed lugging it around but all ended well with precious milk making it back safely into my freezer :)

Pusan was quite fun coz I was in good company. Managed to catch 3 films this time round - (i) Help Me Eros by Lee Kang Sheng, which was a subtly disguised soft-porn arty farty flick with a disturbing scene involving a naked woman and a bathtub full of eels. I'll never look at unagi the same again *shudder*. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise given that the director is Tsai Ming Liang's alter ego; (ii) The Haunted Samurai - entertaining Japanese comedy which I caught purely coz Satoshi Tsumabuki was in it *drool*; and (iii) Sukiyaki Western Django - a mind-boggling Japanese Western with the Japanese cast sprouting English dialogue complete with a Western drawl. Directed by Takashi Miike and with a cameo by Quentin Tarantino, the movie was at times funny and poignant but mostly bizarre. Unfortunately we missed the Hero screening and its star Takuya Kimura by a day :(

Second time in Pusan and I finally saw more than the Haeundae beach area coz we bravely took the 1+ hour subway ride into town. Was quite happening with the PIFF activities, night market and neon-lit shops.

And the food this time was quite yummy too. Don't know the names of the dishes, but we had pretty decent chow including blowfish soup, kimchi fried rice, bugolgi but after a while we got pretty sick of all the spicy stuff and normal sandwiches tasted damn good :)

So glad to be home with the little rascal again!! :)

It's been some time since my last blog...absolutely no time at work to update and I don't bring my lappie home. So now I'm sneaking in some time to update (when I should be preparing a powerpoint presentation :P).

Jonah is now 4 months old - fast hor? He's a big boy, almost outgrowing his rocker and maxi cosi. And he's started to discover the joys of rolling over from his back to his front, he always breaks out into a smile and a giggle when he lands on his tummy - like "eh wah, it's a totally new point-of-view ah!" I'll miss him so much when I'm in Pusan next month! :( Still figuring out the milk situation - will FedEx or DHL send my milk back to Singapore??

I've started my Tuesday yoga class again and this time have roped in Carlene. After a year of not practising yoga, the first 2 lessons have been exhausting!! Cannot stretch or balance or hold a posture as well as before...but it's the only exercise I get (aside from carrying Jonah)...

Went to check out NTUC Finest over the weekend - the higher end NTUC supermarket at Bukit Timah Plaza. It's such a strange place - most of the shops there seem stuck in the 80s. Quite fun to explore the supermarket, checking out imports that you usually don't find elsewhere, like square watermelons from Taiwan that cost $68 each - madness!! I'm sure they taste just like normal watermelons except maybe easier to cut up :P

Okay, gotta get back to the darn powerpoint...

Finally! Some down time to blog...it's been busy busy busy since I got back to work with the getting up-to-date with work stuff, pumping and going home to baby. I can't help but feel that I'm missing out on Jonah's growing up as I slave in the office everyday, dealing with silly trivial issues, when I could be at home spending time with him. Sigh...but wat to do, bringing up baby is an expensive process, and I think I'll go nuts staying home everyday - what a conundrum! I was a bit worried leaving him at mom's coz the dogs are there. But they're slowing getting used to each other, and I think Jonah and Daisy are even becoming friends :)

Had National Day brunch at Gloria's place... it was more of a play-date for our sons - Matthew (8mths), Josh (7mths) and Jonah (3mths). Looking at the photos, Jonah's almost as big as Josh!!He's getting very vocal now, squealing and gurgling a lot, especially when you sing to him or when he listens to the radio. When he sees the newscaster on TV, he starts "talking" to her too, coz he thinks that she's talking to him... Kawaii ne!! :)

Back to work in 9 days!!! *Sobs*

Went down to Clarke Quay yesterday to reactivate my season car park - a sure sign that I'm due back at work *sobs*

Managed to catch up with my girlfriends over the weekend as hubby was in KL (poor thing was caught in the rain whilst riding the north-south highway to and from KL....gimme a car any time!) Had dinner at Brotzeit German Restaurant at Vivo City with Mel and Gerry...I just can't understand the German fascination with sausages and sauerkraut. The entire menu consisted mainly of various types of beer and various types of sausages. Poor Gerry had a difficult time deciding what to eat coz her new philosophy is that she won't eat anything that she can't kill herself. So she ended up with a tuna salad (a huge salad) coz she figured that she could at least catch fish :P Also managed to meet up with Sharon W, who flew in from Sweden enroute to Indonesia for a biz trip. Haven't seen her in a bit so was glad that we managed to catch up.

Finally watched Transformers. Yeah, the movie had super cool CGI and animation...but it came across like a typical John Woo Hollywood flick - non-stop crash-boom-bang action and really cheesy dialogue. Optimus Prime's machoness was seriously undermined by his sentimentality - it was almost comical. I dunno, I grew up watching the original cartoon along with others like Voltron, Thundercats, MASK, G.I Joe, X-men etc... and somehow the robots just came across as just that - robots. Must be all the cold hard steel and metal used in the animation...But Shia Labeouf was highly entertaining as the geek thrown into the battle.

And finally, I can't believe how expensive children's books are - the new Harry Potter costs about $50!!! I don't remember my Enid Blytons costing anywhere in that ballpark, and they came in hard covers too! Rowling is laughing all the way to the bank! I'll just borrow the book from someone, just like I've done so for the past 2 books...... :P

The many faces of Jonah...

At 10 weeks old, he's taken to fiddling with his fingers and sucking them...dunno if that's better than the pacifier tho'...and I've found a new use for my nursing pillow :)

A Tribute to the Wifee...

It's been 5 years!!!!

Happy 5th Wedding Anniversary!!!

That's how long Glenn and I have been married - 5 years ago at the Church of St Francis Xaiver and the Oriental Hotel - I kenna sangkut :) We were the first amongst our group of friends to do so, starting the ball rolling...


Our self-designed invitation cards (with the help of Joe-boy) where we posed with our own hands and wedding rings :) And check out part of our wedding video done oh-so-professionally courtesy of Jon Jon (complete with guest presenter :P).

It's been a wild ride these 5 years - so here's to many more good years to come... and to make the picture complete, we have our own budding financial analyst in the house :)