Boat People

Our friend Sharon from TTC days came over for afternoon tea and so we can take our boys swimming. Asher is nearly 2 and was very good in the pool and in his boat... He was propelling himself quite speedily across the water!

Ethan is of course more dependant on Daddy when in the pool, and he too had a grand time being tugged around in his boat. He can't reach out of it to paddle like Asher though!

After the big pool, we went into the baby pool where we found out for the first time that Ethan can stand all by himself while holding onto the edge. The boys had a grand time so we left while everyone was still happy and went upstairs for a hot shower.

Ivan made "baby french toast" for the boys and crepes with "honey lemon" drink variants for the adults. Asher liked the iced honey lemon drink so much he didn't want to give it up though it was actually mummy's!

Baby French Toast (safe for babies)
Make batter using 45ml formula, 1 egg yolk, 1 tbl spoon plain flour. Cut off edges from bread slices and cook in toaster over or pan-fry on a non-stick pan without oil. Note there is no butter, sugar, or salt. You may add appropriate mashed fruit.

Orange Butter Crepes with Rum
(today's was a rush job with no orange peel and no ice-cream)

Finger Foods

After weeks of patient trial & error, Ethan is now getting the hang of feeding himself with finger foods. Here is the Hungry One after a long afternoon of crawling and inspecting his home. He even understands when we tell him to "use your teeth!" to bite at the biscuit! We still have some way to go on finger food development though.....Ethan still needs to learn to let go of his biscuit at the end! At present he ends up clutching a gooey mess of wet biscuit which he tries to put into his mouth but forgets to let go of!

But that's a minor detail to the overall joy of having acquired the skill of being able to feed oneself -- and here he is looking very pleased with himself!

Vertical Joys

Ethan is slowly getting steadier and stronger in pulling himself up to a standing position after a few weeks' practice -- and here he is beaming and feeling pleased with himself for the new perpective on the world!

Standing vertically is one of the joys of being human and our little boy is looking less like a baby and more like a toddler each day. It's been a joy to see him slowly gain more and more control of his movements & mobility, getting steadier and more confident in balancing and venturing further to explore the facinating world around him.

Cousins

Dinner the other night was at Ka Soh Chinese Restaurant and Ethan had a grand time with Emma, his cousin. At first, Ethan tried to pull on her dress where little girl's dresses shouldn't normally be pulled! Emma thought it was all very funny and was very good to her little cousin.

After dinner they went to play with the mirrors. They're both standing on a chair so they can see themselves in the mirror. You can see in the picture above how much taller Emma is. Funny how Ethan's head looks bigger than her's though.... All in all, a grand family outing and funny-face fun with cousins!

Sleep Kit

Sleep is an essential part of a baby's life (and Mummy & Daddy's too!). So we are really glad that the hard work on Ethan's sleep routine seems to be paying off! He's getting a little easier to put to sleep/nap now and here he is wanting to show you his Sleep Kit -- just a few items in our arsenal of baby equipment that we find useful in calming and getting him to bed -- pacifier, nappy blanket & his favourite rubber sea urchin which lights up and is a fun (altho somewhat stimulating toy at night) that makes bed a happy place to be!

Some people have asked how the Baby Contest earlier went -- and we have to say that Ethan didn't make it to the Finals after all. It seems their criteria was more on the babies' developmental stage and as our Bubs is a little of a heavyweight in his category, he's actually taken to crawling a little later than many babies his age. We had a fun experience though, and to us Ethan will always be a Wonderful Breastfed Baby!

Standing Tall

Ethan has started to stand and now at 11 months can hold onto things and stand for about a minute or so! He always looks very pleased with himself when he learns new things. You can't really see the pleased look cos of his pacifier, so I took it out and did this short video. It had to be stopped short cos he was reaching for the fan and actually grabbed it!

Vivo City with Friends

Our old friends, Terence and Vivian were back visiting Singapore after getting married and living, working, and setting up family in Hong Kong. It's been ages since we met up. We got married around the same time, and had boys around the same time too! Nathaniel is 6 months old now... 5 months younger than Ethan.

Though both boys weren't at their cutest they did enjoy their day out in Vivo City and loved staring at the balloons we got for them. We lounged around in a coffee joint afterwards. Do you think the babies look alike? Cos people say Terence and Ivan look alike... someone even congratulated Terence thinking he was Ivan at our wedding 3 years ago.

Ethan loved lounging with his Dad after lunch. He thinks Dad looks very cool with sunglasses, but actually it's eye protection for 2 weeks after LASIK so that Ethan doesn't accidentally reach up and maul Daddy's eyes.

Trying Not to Sleep

Ethan tries so hard to stay awake during the day even when he is very tired. The result is that he sometimes falls asleep sitting up in his cot then he slumps over and continues dozing! Here is one such funny picture... amazing he can still sleep in this strange pose.

The Reading Room

Ethan had a bit of nappy rash today so he let him crawl around a bit without his nappies to get a good airing. But then we noticed he was leaking! Accck.... so he scooped him up and used the opportunity to put him on his potty trainer. Technically, he's too young for potty training now as bowel control only sets in much later, but he looked so comfortable sitting on his potty that we gave him a book to read! Look at him happily enjoying himself!

Daddy's Funny Goggles

We have both been talking about getting LASIK done for some time and we took the plunge. Well, I took it first. Here I am immediately after the surgery on Thursday afternoon. My eyes were nearly shut cos they were a bit puffy and hard to keep open. The eye shield is to stop me from rubbing my eyes during my sleep in the first 24 hours as that's the most crucial time for healing. I also have to use some eye protection when playing with Ethan in the first 7 days of healing so I don't accidentally get whacked.

I slept a lot that first day with most of the discomfort (mild-moderate stinging pain) coming 5 hours after the operation when the numbing eye drops wore off. So I took some panadol and was okay again. The next day I woke up and discomfort was gone and I was seeing clearly. The check-up went well and I am now seeing nearly 6/6 which is very good recovery after 1 day. Vision will fluctuate in the first 7 days but I am seeing very well now and am very satisfied! Must be gentle with the eyes and diligent with my eye drops especially in this first week as the eye heals.

Dr Julian Theng who set up the Eagle Eye Centre at Mt Alvernia did a great job and is very reassuring, which helps you keep calm. Plus his staff are all excellent and the $1 cappucino is quite good considering it comes from a machine! He spot on cleared my 550+ myopia and 350+ astigmatism though I have thin corneas. So I highly recommend him and his centre. Thanks to Judy and Yogi who recommended him to us! I also bought his small book called "A Long Sighted Look at Presbyopia" and now understand what presbyopia is and what we can expect as we go past 40 and may need reading glasses. I always thought that was long-sightedness setting in but it's not! If you were misinformed like me it's a good read as many opticians will not know the various types of treatments available so it's good to educate oneself.

I'm looking forward to be able to play rough and boisterous games with Ethan now without having to take off my glasses and look for a safe place to put them all the time. And now when he rides on my shoulders I can properly see where I am walking! Renata says she has now married the man in her wedding album. Ha ha... if you don't know what she means, click on the wedding album link on the right!

Sea Urchin Lessons

We bought this cheap toy a long time ago and Ethan loves it. When you shake it it lights up and flashes and multiple colours and it's made of this rubbery material that is reaaaally stretchy. It looks like a hot pink sea-urchin with a smiley face with a long dangly stretchy string. Ethan loves playing with it!

Friendly sea urchin only costs $1 so it's definitely made in China and perhaps has some unsafe substances in it with all the news reports going on nowadays. But gosh, it's near impossible to avoid all made-in-China items isn't it? Thus, we pray that there is no such thing as pink-dyed lead rubbery-stretchies... especially since Ethan loves "twanging" it with his two front teeth.

Daddy tries to make appropriate twanging sounds of varying pitch and volume depending on how hard Ethan pulls on it with his hands and how far he pulls it back with his teeth. This is elementary guitar theory going on here... together with some amplitude, frequency, and tension lessons. Dunno if Ethan is picking up anything from it yet.

Charming Pair

We didn't have that many pictures of Renata and Ethan before because he was often breastfeeding so I (Ivan) can't post pictures of that! But now I get more presentable pics of my lovely wife and cute son! Ethan is fully on the bottle, and the milk bar is closing down, getting ready to re-open only for "next shift". Dunno when that will happen...only God knows! Ethan sure doesn't know what's coming when he's no longer the centre-of-the-universe.

We're especially enjoying the last couple of weeks with him. He's weaned, sleeping better, in a good mood, and we think he lost a bit of fat so he's looking that much more handsome! Don't tell him, but he was actually quite fat about a month ago. We didn't post any of the double-chin and puffy cheek pictures, and certainly not the tired-looking ones of all of us when he refused naps and woke up at night for a while...

Reaching Out

Ethan's arms seem to be getting longer as he reaches out to explore even more of the world around him -- and we have had to put our baby lotions, tissues and baby powder further and further from the edge of the bed! He's been getting extra reach now that he can pull himself up to a kneeling position and is now able to turn on his Mozart mobile high up on his bed for some naptime entertainment.

This morning we left the tissues a little too close to the edge and I walked in after putting him down for his nap to find him sitting and smiling in the middle of a nest of shredded tissues....

Paragon Day Trip

After an early morning feed immediately followed by an early morning nap, we all roused ourselves to go down to Paragon for a half-day outing. We wanted to show Ethan the kiddy playground there. He loses out to the other kids of course, cos he's still too small. Though he had fun on the rubbery floor he still likes his seat on Daddy's shoulders the best!

Lunch was at the Soup Spoon downstairs. Ethan gobbled up his pumpkin and rice porridge (from Mum's Kitchen) even before Daddy sat down with his soup! A passer-by helped us take this nice photo.

A bit of baby-biscuit shopping, and 15 min later we were in the car heading home and Ethan was out like a light. He's still snoozing now after his grand day out.

Fun with Books

Ethan got his first introduction to books early on at around his 2nd month, but apart from biting on them (see "Eat This Book" posted on 17 Mar) he didn't quite take to them and his short attention span soon moved on to other toys. So we are really pleased that of late he has shown much more interest and real engagement with the books we read with him! He not only enjoys looking at the pictures but also loves turning the pages too!