I love it when Daddy plays with Cheryl because whenever I join them later, they will have new tricks to show me.

This evening, Daddy was having some private time with C and she played with some of her toys she received on her first birthday. They are those boards with cut-out pictures of animals and C would place the cut-outs into the correct slots.

There is this particular one which comes with sounds of the corresponding animals when they are put correctly. There will be little magnets on the board and cut-outs and the sounds will only be activated when these magnets touch each other.

And you will be surprised what C can do.



Apparently, Daddy can do it with his hair too!

Cheryl returned from Josiah with something green today.

She said she created a forest and then she showed it to Daddy and me. :)

Well, it is never to early to start to save Gaia.

I never used to feel this way but I have had enough bad experiences to say this now.

Incident no.1 :

Last year, I dropped the mail into the post box personally yet the intended party never received the letter. The mail was actually an instructional manual for the Quinny pram that we both bought and I had to reprint the entire manual to post to her again.

Incident no.2 :

I have received discount coupons meant for other people living in another block and I had to deliver the coupons to them myself.

Incident no.3 : *this is the worst*

Both Daddy and I didn't receive our credit card bills and we had no idea that we had defaulted on our payment until the bank very *nicely* called us up! They were not willing to waive our late charges initially and we had to insist that it was not our fault and told them to check their records because we have always been prompt in our payment.

Incident no.4 :

I ordered an item online some time back and although the seller posted the package 2 Saturdays ago, there is still no sight of my package in the letter box. I didn't think it was necessary to request for registered mail (I should have) and now I am suffering the consequences. I don't think Singpost tracks normal mail like they do for registered.

I have heard of horror stories about how some packages arrive torn from some friends. This is especially scary because we like to shop online nowadays and many of the items that I get are delivered and I don't really want my packages lost.

This was one of C's many birthday presents from the previous year and I didn't let her play with it till now.

She was up on her changing table when she caught sight of this and wanted us to let her play with it. She was really excited and went about naming the items in the bento. The "food" looked good enough to eat if you ask me and Daddy and I were not surprised that she tried to put them in her mouth.

She stacked up the different levels and it did look like a real bento set!

Cheryl learned about tempo in class today and Teacher Siew Li got the kids accustomed to reading the music terms in Italian.

Here C is matching the respective pictures to the correct music terms. She knows that presto means the tempo is very fast, largo means it is extremely slow, allegro means lively and fast and adagio means moderately slow.

I decided that tonight would be the night that C went to bed without her diapers.

After all, there have been signs that she is ready to be diaper-less:
1) her diaper is usually dry the next morning
2) she tells me or Daddy whenever she needs to pee
3) she pees before going to bed

And since tomorrow is Saturday and we don't need to wake up early for work, Daddy agreed to do the trial.

update: 260708

Cheryl woke up close to 7am and asked me to make milk. I got up, half expecting the sentence "Mummy, I'm wet too" so with bated breath, I walked over to her bed and felt the sheets first.

My eyes widened when the sheets were dry and then I touched her clothes, dry too!

I smiled at our Precious and told her softly to get up to pee.

Then we got her the milk and went back to the room. She is still in La La Land. :)

We will try it again tonight.

update: 270708
No accidents last night too! =)

Yeah!!! Think we can officially declare that C is diaper-less!

I have at least 20 pieces of diapers left, is anyone keen?

When I woke up this morning, I knew instinctively I was not well.

As I was brushing my teeth, I suddenly couldn't hear a thing and everything in the bathroom started spinning. I only heard a loud ringing in my ears and I was trying to finish fast in the bath room and go back to lie down.

As I was walking back, I was trying my best to keep my balance and not make any noise, after all, it was not even 6 am and I didn't want to wake anyone. But I walked into the bookshelf in our room and I couldn't find the bed. Thank goodness, Daddy caught hold of me else I would just pass out.

Then he told me to stay at home and rest. I was contemplating going to work still but I was worried that I might just black out in school- toilet, in class, or fall down the stairs and break my neck so I took his advice. We are all worried about Grand Daddy as he was admitted to hospital 3 days ago and is still there and I don't want to add on to everyone's already exhausted minds and bodies and be a burden in these tiring time.

Grand Daddy was so ill that he let slip something: he asked aloud why the docs don't give him meds to make his cancer go away. When I heard him say this, I hid my face and cried silently because Grand Daddy had been fighting his cancer for the past 2 years and there were moments where we almost lost him.

Yesterday, when I went to visit him in the hospital, he was still looking fine but after Mummy and I returned from our lunch, Grand Daddy was shivering like a leaf and his face had turned so pale. His limbs were freezing cold and he could barely speak. We were terrified!

Thankfully, he is better now and will be discharged today.

Cheryl told me that she missed her Grand Daddy and I assured her that we would see him this weekend.

I collected my Eco-Rhapsody Mikado FLOWER bag, compliments from Mediacorp over the weekend.

I really love the design!

Features
- Lightweight, portable, waterproof, reusable, affordable.
- With reinforced seams, each surprisingly large bag holds the equivalent weight of 2 supermarket plastic bags.

And…they’re really, really cute!!

And why I truly adore it:

The large bag folds into this really handy, tiny thingy which I conveniently drop into my bag. :)

I usually will go groceries shopping on my way back after work and on several occasions, (before I collected the bag) I would give the supermarket a miss because I hadn't got any recyclable carriers with me. Either that or I made consecutive trips, one evening after another to get all the things I needed because the bag I carry to work is only this big.

I told the Doc about Cheryl's sensitive nose and this is the medicine he gave to her to solve her morning "bubble-blowing".

Yes, when she sneezes hard enough, she does blow bubbles with her mucus!

She has been on this medication for days now and I must say it is highly effective.

Cheryl did a number of activities during music class today!

Teacher Siew Li set up 3 different stations and the kids had great fun doing the activities and revising their note values.

She remembers how the children love bowling so while Cheryl played, she also has to tell me the pin she had knocked down if it was noted with a semi breve or a dotted minum and she also has to recall the values.

Then there was marble play too.

And C had to place the correct letters to the corresponding notes.

And there were some musical terms like fermata, staccato, slur and tie that Cheryl learned too.

This is a video of Cheryl playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:



Although we practise every evening, Cheryl still has a long way to go... .

Yes, our Precious is unwell again. She came down with a cough last night and had difficulty falling asleep because she was coughing ever so often. Daddy commented in the morning that she was mumbling in her sleep and calling out to me.

I was as dead as a log last night and was in La La Land immediately after my head touched the pillow and was none the wiser about her restless night.

And in the afternoon, C had a fever so I brought her to the Doc's as soon as I got back. I also told the Doc about Cheryl's morning sinus problem and he gave her something for that. He said that the meds is safe for children to take on a long term basis and for as long as she suffers from this sensitive nose aka runny nose. The only comfort was that he said she will outgrow it.

When I told Daddy, he jokingly asked me if the meds is safe for him too because his nose gives him the same problem every morning too. And he also said I should ask Doc if he will ever outgrow the illness. Ops, does this mean that C will never rid herself of this??

I don't want to think about it. As it is, she is showing signs of mild eczema on the back of her hands and Doc said it is very common for children to have eczema when they have sensitive nose. Watery eyes is another symptom.

So for now, we will tackle one problem at a time. She has her cough syrup, and she will be fed Adezio religiously till her "morning flu" clears because Daddy and I do not want this to develop into a full blown asthma thing. I get a note from Ms Sally ever so often telling us that C has a "very runny nose for months" so I wrote her back to inform her about the Doc's diagnosis.

This is Cheryl's progress report from Teacher Siew Li. Daddy and I are both glad she is doing well in class and more importantly, that she enjoys her hour long lesson every Saturday.

Cheryl will be starting on Book 2 next week! :)

Cheryl learned to tap to the 2/4 (duple) tempo with castinet and although she didn't do it quite well, she wouldn't let me touch the instrument.

Teacher Siew Li reminded us that the children will be moving on to Book 2 and for revision, she had to do some activities like notes reading and such.

To round up the session, Teacher Siew Li got the children to play Musical Chairs; only that there was a chair for all the children present. (Way to go! Definitely a winner with the children, especially Cheryl who has such a playful streak in her.)

Yes, we finally came down to Astons' for lunch. I talked about coming to this place when Cheryl started her music class in January but we never made the trip here and every time we passed by the place, there was always a long queue which kind of kept us away... .

Cheryl posing with bread! She has a soft spot for bread and when she saw the many loaves of bread sitting on the shelves, she grinned from ear to ear and couldn't resist a pose.

Cheryl enjoying her onion rings!

Cheryl and I shared a plate of spaghetti while Daddy had their signature steak! Cheryl loved her pasta and the tender steak that Daddy offered her. We were surprised that she took to the beef as she hardly ate beef at home.

After we had our fill, we boarded a bus back. This is a rare sight because we are always travelling in our Stream. Cheryl was delighted that she had full view of what was ahead and we thought it was a brilliant idea to use the public transport every now and then so that Cheryl could experience something different and new.

Cheryl came back with yet another craft piece. She used paint for this piece of work and I was trying to be smart and went "Oh and Ah" and then after like 2 minutes, she looked up at me, stared hard into my eyes and said, "Mummy, I drew short and long lines."

Oh... Okay, I won't pretend to know what I don't know next time, Baby.

Sigh... if only it is this easy.

Cheryl, like her Daddy has a soft spot for Games and lately, we came across some websites which have her hooked on some of the games.

She adores Strawberry Shortcake and loves to play some of the games on the website. Although some of the games are way too advance for her, she doesn't feel the least bothered. She plays the easy ones like the Memory Game and I must say, she is pretty good at this! She can get pictures right even though there are so many squares to remember.

Carebears, another cartoon character she loves.

And the girl in her absolutely comes through when she plays Holly Hobbie games. She gets to dress Holly up in different attires and send her to school or a party. In addition, she also gets to play with Holly's doll house and decorate the rooms with pictures and furniture.

And when she gets bored with the games after playing for hours, she will entertain herself with the many video clips there. The good thing is, she no longer hogs the television, but it does look like we have another problem at hand...

I have been meaning to take Cheryl to the National Museum and finally, before the Mozart Interactive Exhibition ends its run here, we caught it.

Cheryl was extremely excited when I told her about it because she has been telling me she wants to dress up like a Princess and what better chance than to do so at the exhibition where there are so many things to keep the children occupied and educate them at the same time.

Cheryl, together with Zinnia and Yeva played dress-up, had supper at the Tavern, learned how to make tooth powder for teeth cleaning, tried a herbal remedy for headache, rode in a "horse carriage", slept in the Genius' bed, visited Queen Victoria in her Palace and even wrote some letters! Yeah, so much activities and all in the span of 2 hours!

Another reason why Cheryl adores Teacher Siew Li and her music lessons on Saturdays!

There are always fun activities to play and lovely songs to sing along to. Often, the children have to do some accompanying actions to the songs they sing and today, Cheryl had to gallop to the song "She'll be coming around the Mountain."

Cheryl could play "London Bridge" so next week, she will have to play her favourite "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". It is now 7 months since she started her class and I must say, progress has been good and steady. In the past, although she would not reject the thought of practising her keyboard every evening, she wouldn't spend more than 10 minutes on it. Since her little performance, she seemed more willing to sit down a little longer and play 2 pieces during practice.

After Teacher Siew Li went on her rounds, she told Cheryl that she could go play... That was the usual practice but today, she was pleasantly surprised when she saw these little bees and the balls on the table.

Yap! Mini Bowling!!

And the highlight of the class must definitely be the Bubbles session! Teacher Siew Li even brought bubbles to let the children play.

Yeah... what a treat!