Relishing this Birthday

We are at Relish in Cluny Court enjoying gourmet burgers and a great Belgium pale ale! Ethan is only having water though! This morning he was complaining about having to stop what he was doing to get changed until Mummy said, "We're going out!" Then he quickly changed his clothes cos he always loves going out!


He walked into the restaurant, saw grandpa and grandma and immediately said: Yeh Yeh, Ah Mah! He sure knows how to butter them up. Mister Ethan was very well behaved all through lunch and entertained all of us!

Auntie Mei got Ethan these wonderful stacking boxes - brilliant in their simplicity and Ethan enjoyed them a long time after the meal was over. In fact, the whole lunch was her idea and her treat! Presents also included a bumble-bee outfit which I'm sure will appear on the blog soon!

Ethan's World Has Moved!

http://www.ethantalia.info/

Exactly 2 years old, Ethan's World has moved. Our dear sweet boy is making space in both his room and in his blog for his new little sister coming very soon... http://www.ethantalia.info/

The birth news and Talia's baby photos will be posted here when she arrives!

MP3 Fan

Ethan loves listening to this MP3 player lying around. The earphones are too big for him so he will hold them to his ears like this. This toddler just loves music!

HFMD

About 4 weeks ago, we noticed Ethan having a couple of ulcers in his mouth and 2 small rashes on his chest. Ordinarily this wouldn't have bothered us except that just a few days before, one of Ethan's toddler buddies had just been diagnosed with Hand Foot & Mouth Disease (HFMD) which had been on the rise! So we went to a nearby doctor and he said that it did look like a classic case of the disease.

So for the next 2 weeks, we had to stay at home and quarantined from all of Ethan's young friends. Every day, we checked Ethan for further signs of HFMD but apart from a few more spots on his legs, he never really broke out with the major symptoms like fever, blistery rashes, painful ulcers or loss of appetite.

In fact, as you can see here, he was quite his usual cheery self throughout the 2 weeks and his voracious appetite never really did wane! We are pretty glad he caught only a very mild strain of the bug.... actually he's probably the only kid we know of who actually put on weight during his bout of HFMD with all the time he spent relaxing around the house while being quarantined!

A Big Move for a Little Boy

You may have been wondering why Ethan's World has been taking a break lately -- well, the reason is that we have been very busy packing and moving these last few months! Despite his tender age, Ethan has been very helpful in the tough work of relocation. First, we had to measure our furniture to make sure they would fit in the new place......

Then all our belongings had to be packed away in boxes.....
After that came the hard work of transporting our stuff to the new place and making a few trips to Ikea to get a few home improvements to make our place a comfortable home.......
All that was tough work for a toddler and we are glad Ethan has adjusted well to his new home. Here he is getting a well-deserved sleep for doing so well in our Big Move!

Cousins!

Aunty Ruth visited Singapore for the first time with Josie last week and although Ethan took a while to warm up to Aunty Ruth and his new cousin (now 6 months), they soon became good mates with Ethan imitating the sounds Josie was making and joining her in crawling around! We're glad he got on well with her and he sure looks like he will be a good big brother to his new sister when she comes in a couple of months!

Say Cheese!

We had friends over for dinner last night and Erny brought the coolest door gift - a Fisher Price tricycle that Jarred has outgrown. Gosh, I sure get excited over different things nowadays! Ethan was just as excited as I was when he saw it, so we cycled around the house this morning and went to the park in the afternoon. Here he is posing for the camera. In fact he learned something new these past few days. I said "Say cheese!" and Ethan actually said "Chee.." and smiled! A second after that he would cock his head to one side and smile even more broadly. We don't know where he learned this from but it sure is cute. He knows we think it's cute cos he's tilting his head more and more until in this picture it's at 90 degrees!

Daddy's Home!

Daddy is back and brought Ethan to the Bt Timah Nature Reserve after dropping mummy off at work. There is a big tiger behind us and Ethan made growling sounds when he saw it. It's the same sound he answers with when we ask him "What sound does lion make?" so cute!

We hope Ethan will be as brave as a lion tonight cos it is mummy's turn to go away, though only for one night. Daddy needs to be brave too with Ethan alone tonight!

Daddy in East Timor

Ethan missed his daddy this week cos he was away in East Timor with a team of 4 people from church. Here are two of us with two other Timorese guys. We had a really rowdy jam session in their home the night before so we were good buddies by this time! Now daddy is on the way home using free WiFi in Bali and can't wait to hug Ethan....and mummy too of course! :)

Handphone Conversations

Ethan just loves to chat on the phone. He sometimes also chats using the remote control or the alarm clock, but he usually gets it right and is on the phone. It's a great way to get him to verbalize all that cute baby-speak, and he even intersperses it with a few SMS's!

Out For A Stroll

Look who is so grown up! Ethan was going out with his favourite Dad and it looks like he could take on the world in those sporty sneakers. But going out has its dangers too. Ethan recently got his first elbow scrape when he fell down on the concrete. A few days later and he scratched the scabs off ... all without any crying. What a toughie is our little son!

Chloe or Talia?

She will turn Ethan's World upside down... and probably move it a new domain name too! We thought her name would be Chloe but now we also like Talia, and here's her ultrasound. In the beginning you can see her spine then after a few seconds look out for her head. You can make out her eyes and face and even her hand and individual fingers!

Walk with Daddy

We went to the park today - just the two boys and Ethan had a great time exercising and playing with his daddy! This is also the first mobile blog from dad's new handphone-pda. We're getting ready to mobile blog for the coming of Ethan's little sister - yes, it is confirmed that she will be a girl!

Computer Lessons

Busy, busy, busy! Ethan is touching up his own website...

Mummy says this that is exactly what Daddy looks like...both in earnest concentration and when something/someone disturbs that focussed time on the PC.

But Ethan is extra happy with what he accomplished today. You see, Daddy watches Ethan use the computer and though he tries to teach the little bub a thing or two, Ethan has started teaching Daddy some things too. We knew the time would come, but didn't think it would be so soon.

You see, Ethan will rattle away and often finds some shortcut that Daddy didn't know about. Today he somehow brought up Computer Management directly from the desktop! It's a fairly advanced and esoteric part of Windows that most people don't know about it. I usually go to Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management to get at it and still don't know how Ethan managed to pull it up directly.

I looked away and when I glanced back, the web-page Ethan was fiddling with suddenly looked all tiny. Upon closer inspection it was zoomed at 40% which even my lasiked 20-20 eyes couldn't read. Further examination uncovered this shortcut that Ethan taught me! In Internet Explorer click Ctrl then scroll the mouse wheel up/down and this will zoom the page in/out. I only knew Ctrl-Shift + or - to zoom in/out. This mouse wheel one is better! Thanks Ethan...

Singapore Flyer

We took a trip on the world's largest observation wheel - the Singapore Flyer! It was Barker Rd Methodist Church's staff & family day so Ethan and Ivan tagged along with everyone else. It was a great outing.

Ethan was wide-eyed with wonder at the sights, and we were suitably impressed with how well the whole Singapore Flyer experience was done. They had nice restaurants, good staff, spanking new facilities BUT no diaper change tables! Shock and horror... how can a world-class tourist attraction have no diaper change tables? One staff said "Sorry, don't have" so we proceeded to change Ethan on a bench in the foyer whereby another staff came and said, "You can use the first-aid room!" First-aid room!!?! Knock off the red-cross and slap on some white diapers I say...

At the base of the Flyer is lovely garden. Singapore seems to be very good at doing this man-made stuff which, though a little sterile, was still pleasing and fun. Ethan enjoyed it!

In the Flyer itself, I am pleased to say that the airconditioning worked very well despite the heat of the early afternoon. Ethan was the smallest of the kids there. You can see that he wants to start playing with others but doesn't quite have the physical development just yet!