The Happy Bi-Ped

It's amazing to look at Ethan now and realise that one year ago, he thought his legs were for putting in his mouth and banging on his keyboard toy! Watching him happily toddle around the house is quite heartwarming as we see him become a full-fledged bi-ped!

Love That Helmet

After all the fun we've been having riding bicycles these last few weeks we spotted a toddler's helmet at Carrefour. It was only $13 and Ethan loved it when we put it on his head in the store. In fact, he will happily wear it around the house just doing other things, occassionally reaching up and patting his helmet.

Ethan has sure come a long way since not enjoying having hats on his head. He will wear hats and especially this helmet for a long time. We thought he looked extra sporty in it while flying his Pooh aeroplane.

Mr Explorer sure does love his new adventure gear. Pity he still can't try Daddy's motorbike with it though. Daddy is sure Ethan would love it...

East Coast Again

We had such fun the last time we went to East Coast Park that we decided to go again. Off we went armed with hats to protect us from the sun. This time, Ethan wore his hat for a very long time - almost the entire outing!

Mummy's hat was even the same kind as Ethan's!

We found a nice place with a bit of shade and rested on our beach towel while Ethan played with his favourite spade. For a while, it felt like we weren't in Singapore at all.

The most memorable part of the day was our bicycle ride! We rented 2 bikes including one with a seat for Ethan. When he first got on he didn't look very impressed with the setup, but once we got going he squealed with delight and grinned as we cycled all the way down the beach stretch. We ended up at the jetty where we sang our "Fish, Fish" song as we looped figure-eights and laughed baby squeals of delight!

Sick

After the busy socializing of the Festive season, Ethan has caught a bug. He's had fever for 3-4 days and was clingy, crying a lot and very sensitive to sudden loud sounds. So it really was bad timing for us when they decided to test the fire alarms in our building last week! I guess it's tough when you can't really understand why you are feeling so awful.

It was also a tough week for Mummy who had to manage without Daddy, and it got a little worrying when he started to develop a rash after the fever! (just when we thought we were out of the woods!) Fortunately we had quite a lot of support from Grandparents & Church Friends who helped in little ways to get us through this period. We are also glad that it turned out to be a viral thing that seems to be quite common in young kids. I'm glad Ivan is coming back soon tho......was a rather lonely thing to have to pick up a kid who is burning with fever and looking at his glazed eyes in the wee hours of the night......

Just the 2 of Us

This New Year it was just the 2 of us again -- Daddy was away so Ethan gets Mummy all to himself this week! He's been quite a good boy just like Daddy told him to be before he left. Daddy will be proud of this little man of the house while he was away!

In the meantime, Ethan's been busy spending time socialising at Ah Mah & Yeh Yeh's New Year's Eve Party as well as exploring Suntec City with Por Por & Gong Gong on New Year Day. We discovered that his favourite was the photo booth where we had a screaming good time playing peek-a-boo with the booth curtains!

A Day at the Beach

It was a beach outing day and we were all ready with our hats! You may have heard about our hat escapades during the Christmas Service at WEFC and here is Ethan with his hat! He's still struggling with seeing the point of it, though he always chuckles when he first sees Daddy with his own hat.

Ethan changed into his swimsuit and we walked out onto the sand. He was very puzzled when he first felt the squishy stuff on his toes but he took to it very quickly! We sat on the sand together and played with our dump trucks, rakes, and spades.

Ethan's favourite toy was the spade. We think it's because it looked like a giant spoon and reminded him of the food he loves. In fact, he tried eating the sand... twice... after which the not-so-good taste put him off repeat ventures. It was such a joy to see him having new experiences, learning new things, and enjoying himself. Now I really understand why parents are so happy when they see their children happy.

Mummy sat and played with Ethan too. Here is a video of him playing with the sand and his shovel. He'll have tonnes more fun when he's able to build sandcastles...

After a fantastic day we walked along the beach, drifting off into the sunset and refreshing ourselves with scrumptious food and the cool sea breeze...

Can you see Ethan still holding onto his spade?

File Manager

Ethan followed Mummy to the Office for a bit 2 weeks ago and enjoyed exploring a whole new place now that he is much surer on his feet! He particularly liked my filing cabinet and made a thorough inspection to make sure my filing was up to scratch!
The other highlight of his visit was a grand tour of Wesley Hall courtesy of Michael (also known as our Key Master). Here he is examining Michael's handphone with fierce intensity -- giving Mummy a few more moments of peace!

Elfin' Ethan

Hee hee... check out Ethan's dancing elf moves! You have to click on the picture above to see him dance!

Play Time

We recently discovered (on a lazy afternoon when we had no more energy to play with our bundle of energy) that our wriggly toes sometimes sets Ethan off into peals of laughter!

Ethan's been really lucky -- getting new toys when it isn't even Christmas! Our neighbour upstairs was doing spring cleaning when we bumped into her in the lift...... and her Rocking Horse found a new home! Ethan enjoys rocking himself in it -- after which he gets down to inspect the wheels with an Ivan-esque intensity of concentration.......

But his all time favourite toy is still the Pooh Aeroplane that he got for his Birthday! Lots of lights, fan-like movements and what all little boys like -- speed!

Holi-Day

This week, Ivan took some leave and we had a holi-day. We called it a holi-day because we still had some night ministry to attend to so it was only in the day! Since we weren't going overseas we planned fun things to do which included spending more money on yummy food. On the first day of holi-day we went to explore Parkway Parade and found yummy sashimi in a shop that felt like a mom-and-pop store out of Japan. There were also toys nearby where Father and Son took a ride together...

Being a Tuesday, this was followed by half-priced waffles at Gelare on the East Coast. Ethan sure loved his first bite of waffles! On the second day of holi-day we trooped over to Vivo City to try out the wading pools on the third floor. Ethan even brought his own swimsuit and towel. The weather was perfect and Ethan had a great time.

After splashing with Mummy and Daddy he sat for ages in the deeper part of the pool looking through the glass and splashing the water around him.

Splish splash... goes Ethan's feet. Water sure is fun!

Shokudo Pasta & Pizza

We got invited to Shokudo, Chi's new restaurant at CityLink, for a yummy pre-opening tasting. Always happy to oblige we joined other friends and Japanese afficiandos for a delicious evening. My favourites were the wasabi prawns and the grilled cod-fish with miso paste on pasta.

Brandon was the other super-cute and well-behaved baby there that evening - though he is still too young to know much of what was going on...

Ikea Fun Park

Looking for places to go, we decided one day to make Ikea Tampines the destination for the day, and what a great choice is was. We discovered that Ikea is really a fun park - with free admission, free rides, and even free parking at Tampines. You only have to pay for food which is quite reasonable!

The day started off with a ride on the Spinning Egg Chair. We twirled Ethan around and around and he squealed with laughter so much that Daddy thought he better stop before Ethan may barf! Why is it that kids love getting dizzy? We also played on the Bouncing Air Bags and the Revolving Chairs in the nearby Happy Home Office section.

Ethan really enjoyed the Swinging Curtains - so much so that we were even thinking where we could hang this excellent exercise equipment in the house.

We then went to the driving circuit where Daddy's vroom vroom sounds completed the effects. It was a very happy time with Daddy as the car seat, engine, and sound-effects rolled into one as Ethan spun his steering wheel.

But by far the best time we had at the slides. This blog post is quite some time after the actual Ikea day - so we want to note this as Ethan's first time on a slide. I picked him up and put him at the top. He looked down the slide and then up at me very apprehensively. A little guiding push and as Ethan slid down his face changed to unabashed joy and excitement! He screamed with laughter and as he got off the bottom he immediately stretched towards the slide for another around. We must have done the slides close to 20 times that day! Ethan is hooked and it is extra fun at Ikea cos it is air-conditioned! Here is a video of Mummy bringing him on the slides for the umpteenth time!

Arrabiata

Daddy's at it with the pasta again. A huge pot of "sea-shell" pasta with an arrabiata sauce sans chilli but with a touch of bacon and garlic made it all quite yummy. Ethan loves it but half-way through a meal he seems to get tired of chewing and slows down, so he's still learning to use his 6 teeth. We think tiny macaroni is easier for him to eat compared to these shells. We want to try "alphabet" pasta but we've only seen in at Carrefour and haven't had a chance to go back since. The yield this time was an amazing 20 servings! One entire shelf in our freezer is dedicated to Ethan's food!

Laundry Boy

Ethan is fascinated by the curious whirring and watery noises coming from the washing machine so I thought I would put that curiousity to good use and introduce him to a new 'game' called "The Laundry Game"! It's still early days but we are trying to cultivate a healthy intrest in sorting coloured clothes from whites -- hopefully we can train our little laundry boy to help mummy real soon!

Fish Chowder

It's a new recipe and it's a hit with Ethan! It's fish chowder... okay, it doesn't sound that great but think of clam chowder then morph it to baby-safe fish chowder... tada! Babies shouldn't take shell-fish cos it's likely to make them allergic but fin-fish is good so here it is. I used Dumex 1-Plus instead of cream and it actually tasted quite good. I'll definitely make it again but this time with more potatoes to thicken it further and with alphabet pasta cos I forgot it for this batch and the soup is a bit drippy for baby lips.