I Surrender

Ethan has been very sick for 1 week now. High fever, vomiting and a terrible cough. He's been so weak that he will lie down passively just watching the world go by. Thank God that yesterday we started him on antibiotics and he now on the road to recovery. He is still feeling weak though but here is Talia keeping him company. She looks like she just won in a sibling wrestling match!

Talia's Passport Photo

Talia is 6 months old and getting her first passport for her trip to Langkawi with parents and grandparents. We held her up against the wall and she smiled beautifully! I told Ethan, "Sorry son, Talia's passport photo is much nicer than yours cos we had to take yours when you were only 2 months old in your fat, least-cute stage!"

Kangaroo

Does this pouch look familiar? It was Ethan's favourite one when he was Talia's age and it looks like our little girl enjoys the bird's eye view too! It's really good for when I need to go out for a short jaunt with both of them as I am hand-free!

Things haven't been going so well on the new sleeping venue tho. Talia's caught Ethan's flu bug and has been pretty unsettled and waking a lot at night, so she's moved back into my room and sleeping with me for now.... She's been pretty hard to settle so I've been getting about 4-5 hrs sleep a night and pretty tired! Hope she gets better real soon. Thankfully Ethan's been charming and even helps to soothe her when I run out of steam -- often doing quite a good job on his own!

Pure Joy

Our friend Sharon took these pictures of Ethan playing at the water park. She said that his happy was was irresistable! I think so too... the title of the montage is very appropriate for the screaming squeals of delight on his cute l'il face.

I Love My Sister

After missing Ethan and Talia for one week while I was in East Timor, Daddy is now in Thailand on another trip. Well, I got to spend 2.5 days at home and we squeezed in many good times together. This precious photo was captured by Mummy showing the amazing sibling love between our two children. It really is sweet! Ethan really likes playing and interacting with Talia, and she will squeal and react to him when he comes close. Sniff sniff... Missing you Ethan and Talia...and you too Mummy!

Room Mates

Ethan has a new room mate! (and we have our room back!) We moved Talia's bed into Ethan's room on Thursday and so far Ethan has been thrilled to have company in his room. Here they are lying down together in the morning while Ethan gets changed. He was so excited he didnt get his pyjamas all the way off before copying Talia who was happily cooing while holding her toes......

It's really been a joy to have Ethan all this time but its really quite a new flavour of tingly warm feelings to see the 2 kids enjoying each other so much.

We decided to move Talia at this stage because :
a) She is already sleeping about 8 hours after her last night feed
b) New-room & Separation anxiety have not quite hit home for her yet!
Rooming together does mean that they are much more likely to wake each other up, so I have to try to get to them as swiftly as possibly to diffuse any crying before it escalates. However, we expect that along the way, they will learn to tune each other out except for the louder sounds made by each other. We have already seen Ethan sleep thru the (false) fire-alarms that tend to go off quite often around here!!

First Classmate Over to Play

Ethan had his first classmate over to play! Her name is Alina and of course we had her mummy, Adeline, over too. Adeline said, "Alina is always talking about Ethan saying Ethan did this and taught her that!" So we asked Ethan about her and he said, "Alina pretty girl!" That she is and they play really well together too!

It's very amusing watching the different way Ethan plays with Alina as compared to other boys. Our son is quite a gentle creature so he played very sweetly with Alina who is smaller than him (her head actually looks half the size of our chunky son's large one!). They took turns with various toys and even pushed each other around on the Pooh Aeroplane (see below!).

When there are other boys around it gets much rowdier. So even though we had two toddlers playing, it was actually quite peaceful and pleasant and all three adults had their fill of our "day off" lunch - Ivan's portobello mushrooms, asparagus wrapped with bacon, and fresh hamburger patties with rocket & baby spinach salad!

Happy Birthday Daddy

Ethan's eyes widened and a broad smile brightened his face as he recognized the work of art that Mummy carefully slid out from the white envelope. "Daddy!" he exlaimed. "Ethan, this is the birthday card you made for Daddy yesterday," said Mummy. "Tell Daddy what you drew for him!"

"Circles...snakes!" Ethan said as he proudly pointed to various colourful circular squiggles and squiggly lines all over the page. He then proceeded to tell me many things about what he did on the paper which I did not understand, yet understood fully. Another thing I now understand is why parents go gah gah over their toddler's art work... a peculiar phenomena which I never appreciated to know. Ethan's birthday card to daddy will be laminated and displayed!

Thanks Ethan and thanks Mummy for facilitating the wonderful birthday card! :)

Urban Escapes

Singapore holds lots of places for mini urban escapes and here we are enjoying one with the kids at the water park inside Vivo City. Talia is looking very pretty in her orange dress with her lovely slim Mummy! Ethan had a ball of a time as usual - fascinated with the water jets that jump around. They sure are fun to try to catch!

Daddy Dialogue

It is Thursday - the sabbath-day of rest, for Renata and I anyway. So today, as Ethan got ready for school we did our normal routine except for a few "work things" that Daddy left out. Ethan got his water bottle and his bag and he sang our school song. Daddy has been singing this special song to him and Ethan knows it very well now:

My school, my school, my school is so much fun
There's lots of things to do, and learning to do be done
I'm looking very smart, and feeling very glad
Carrying my bag... Gosh! I'm just like Dad!

Just outside the front door our dear son then exclaimed, "Forgot bag Daddy!" True enough, Daddy was not carrying his computer bag as he normally does because today is not a work day!

But this is not yet the best part... Today as we were walking to the classroom we sang our songs, talked about the teachers and the other kids and as we were climbing down a flight of stairs, Ethan paused, turned his head to look up to me and said (by himself with no prompting), "I love you Daddy!" He then continued to walk to school, serenely oblivious to the wonderful gift he had just bestowed with his daddy dialogue.

In fact, it's been quite a spectacular week for Daddy in Ethan's eyes and vice-versa. He's been talking about Daddy a lot, thanking Jesus for "wash the car with Daddy" and "drive with Daddy". At night he asks for special "Daddy come inside" time whenever I'm around. It's really very precious!

Dear Darling Daughter

It looks impressive here, but the truth is that I don't feed Talia that much... Daddy actually bottle fed Ethan more but now with a tougher schedule, two kids, and Mary who helps us at home it is a less common sight. Little Miss Talia also has to be walked, bobbed up and down and bottle-fed to get her sucking happily...which is a feat requiring quite a bit of patience which us guys don't usually have with crying kids. Thanks for filling in the gaps mummy!

Brother and Sister

Isn't that amazing? We worked and planned quite a lot to make Talia's entry into Ethan's life a smooth one - but we didn't know that our son would take such a liking to his sister! "Ethan, stand with Talia we'll take a picture" said Mummy. Ethan gladly moved to the side of the stroller, turned his shoulders 45 degrees and said, "Picture!" upon which Mummy snapped the pixels above.

The other day he came back from school and declared, "I wanna hold Talia!" which we allow him to do if he sits nicely on the couch and we rest her in his lap. "Wanna play Talia" is often heard when we set her down under her baby gym and Ethan loves joining in. Here they are during one of those times holding hands!

Chinese New Year Celebrations

The lunar new year has come and gone. The calories have come but have not yet gone... as usual, the whole family enjoyed gathering together, catching up, and stuffing our faces with yummy food. Ethan can be seen quietly enjoying his cocoacino next to Daddy and appreciating the shiny espresso cup!

Talia was decked out in her finest cheongsam. Actually it's her only one which quite handily was given to us by a church friend just one week earlier. It's very "fitting" so we're quite sure that in 1 more month it won't fit her anymore.

Grandma and Grandpa looked especially pleased to have the kids and grandkids all here. Some are overseas, but now with Heather, Emma, Ethan and Talia there are 4 noisy rug rats to scamper around and bring smiles to all our faces... all except Uncle Martin however, who still seems quite fearful of the young'uns!

A Great Day

It is only 8.30am but it is already a great day for Ethan and Talia. Last night our little girl slept 8 hours through the night and didn't cry this morning when she woke up! Ethan was very well behaved the whole morning tooto and when I took him to school he hugged the teachers and said, "Bye Daddy! See you later!" with a happy face. He sometimes says, "My school, my school... Fun!"

Finally, the picture above was taken a couple of days ago when Ethan wanted to play with Talia at her baby gym. They get along really well.

Ahhh...all parts of parenting should be like this.

Siblings and Loving It

Our two kids - such joy they bring into our lives! And this together with such sleep deprivation, tiredness, sore eardrums, volumes of laundry, stunted social lives, and conversation that somehow almost always revolves around them. Precious, precious! We love you Ethan and Talia!