Leblon, Rio De Janeiro

Crossed the street from Hotel Marina All Suites to the beach this morning. Sat there for a while. Love the beach, always will. There waves were roaring. It was awesome!

Called home. You fever has subsided but AG and AM are now falling ill. I'm 36 hours from home. Can't wait.

Kiao Kar II

2nd MMS from Papa:

Standard posture already.

Kiao Kar I

MMS from Papa:
See baby is kiao-ing his leg drinking milk.

Singapore to Brasilia in 45hours

The Journey
SQ Singapore to Paris 12 hours
Transit Hotel 17 hours
AF Paris to Rio de Janeiro 12 hours
Transit 2 hours
TAM Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia 1hr40mins

Gazed at the Big Dipper, watched a couple of movies, ate a nice pizza and lost my only luggage. Now sitting in the capital of Brazil, a planned city shaped like an aeroplane, with almost the same clothes I left home with 72 hours ago, I feel like I have not landed yet.

Spoke to you once, over the phone. You called me "Mummy mummy" like a dozen times, told me that "Mummy bu zai jia", that you were "drink milk!" and playing with the playmobil "ar-tonaut".

*sigh*

Brazil

Am flying off to Brazil in a couple of hours.... by the time I get to Rio, it'll be Friday evening here in Singapore.

Oh my.... this working trip will take 10 days! I have never never ever been away from you for such a long period of time before. I will miss you Sooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooo soooooooooooooo very very much!

Timely Poo

Saturday night, we went to Gallery Hotel to eat Ramen. You were slurping them up like a proper pure bred Japanese boy. Yum Yum. The corn in the soup were delicious too! I think you must have had quite a few dozen kernels.....

Sunday night... dinner at Chomp Chomp in Serangoon with YeYe, Ah Pek, Papa, Mummy, Jiejie, Gorgor & Auntie Yenyenka. You had macaroni fish soup - a lot of it. Mummy got over enthusiastic at the BBQ stall, ordering stingray, sotong, mussels, smelly beans & sambal kangkong.

Later that evening, we sent YeYe home. While on the way there in the car, the 'timely poo' arrived.

Beacuse of the 'timely poo', we had to go to your YeYe's house to get your butt cleaned. While cleaning you up, Papa opened a window in the living room. The entire window pane fell out and down 11 floors. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Extremely fortunately I should say.

If the 'timely poo' had not happened when it happened (i.e Timely), the window pane would have stayed put and most likely fallen off another time and who knows? Killed somebody?

It frightened the hell out of your Papa...and also me, especially after I peered downstairs and saw the aluminium wreck. Neighbours in the next block were already leaning out to see what happened.

By the time we went downstairs to clear it up, the police had already arrived.

So, what has it got to do with Saturday's dinner? Well, the 'timely poo' had lots of whole corn kernels in them!

This is the hundredth post!

Cool Dude

You would never never have given me the opportunity to put this on your forehead had you not been so ill and exhausted.
You are running a 39.4degree fever and I am running out of ideas how to feed you your medication.
Put it in your milk, you refuse to drink. Add it to ribena, you take a little...add an ice cube, you take a little more...threatened you with the syringe, you take a sip and finally, when we force it down your throat, you throw it all back up!

39.8degrees

You are having a fever, again. Your Papa calls it the "sudden fever". I HATE IT!!!

Chocolate raisins

Mummy: Hello? Pa, How is he? /Ah Gong: Don't want to sleep...now cutting up some oranges for him to eat. He saw the chocolate raisins in the fridge and wanted to eat them. I told him, "I give you ONE ok?" and you know what he said? "FOUR!!" He wants four chocolates! / Mummy: Hahahhaaaa!
(How do you know that FOUR is more than ONE?)

Tube

Rain rain rain... What do you do with an energetic toddler on a rainy day? We are running out of ideas, space and places to go! We need a bigger playroom, a bigger house and heck, while we are at it, why not? A bigger country!! ***hahhahaaa***

Potty training.... ?!?

Cultivating bad habits in the toilet at 22mths - reading playmobil catalogs.

I'm a BOY!

I think you are quite particular about textures... while you like playing with sand, you hate messing around with dough. Touching it sends a cold shiver from your head down to your toes.

You also hate any kind of creams or medicine or 'smelly' stuff. We went swimming on sunday and Ah Marh says we should put some sunscreen lotion on you on such a hot day. Couldn't find any Banana Boat or Nivea Sun Spray so I put some of my Chanel Precision Age Delay SPF 15 lotion on your nose and guess what? You made a huge fuss and even gagged! Wha leow, wait till your girlfriend try to exfoliate your black heads next time...! *hmph*

For your cousin's birthday, we bought her a dress... and since you are both the same height, I tried it on on you first. Hahaha... you protested! " Don't want!! DON'T WANT!!!". Somehow, I persuaded you to try it on for a while, just to see and managed to get it over your head. It was a good fit. You went to look at yourself in the mirror and came back tugging the dress shouting "DON'T WANT!!!!".......and I had to quickly get it off you because you were almost in tears. Oh dear, Mummy's horrible!

A while ago before this wardrobe incident, I helped you put on a spiderman romper suit and you were so impressed by it you refused to take it off, even though it was made of fleece and more suited for an air-conditioned room.

So arh, when did you find out you're a boy and not meant to like doughs, creams & dresses???

Arms growing longer.....

Tapigu

Ah Mah: YY, 要去洗手间小便吗?
BY: Don't want!
..........a short while later, a puddle forms on the floor...
Ah Mah: YY ! 你不听话...要打屁股.
......and before it actually happens, ...
BY: Ouch! ouch! ouch!!!

Unignorable

That's you. Impossible to ignore!

In the mornings, what normally starts out as a grumble turns into a loud protest and then ultimately, a full blown tantrum worth 100 decibles - equivalent to a garbage truck - in less than 10minutes.

This morning, too exhausted to get up, I imagined in my dreams that your Papa will wake up to make your milk. Likewise I think, after having only arrived back from an overseas work trip yesterday, he 'dreamt' that I was the one making it.

Your grumble escalated into a tantrum sure enough and then you had the both of us up on our feet. Your Papa tried to calm you down with all sorts of distractions but you will have none of that. I was desperately trying to mix the correct amount of water with hot water & milk powder, with my eyes half shut! Finally, I hand the bottle to you. What a brat! With the bottle in your mouth, you had a complain still one more time, "arhhHHHHHHHHHHH, KARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR@!!!" before settling back to bed with it. Aiyoh-ah baby, don't like dat leh.

By the way, prolonged exposure to any noise above 90 dB can cause gradual hearing loss do you know that?

Salty, oh Salty!!!!

Mommy: .........salty, spin us another one, .........salty, sing us another one, .........salty, one more story will do.....salty,
BY: .....oooooooohhh salty!.........
Mommy: We'd always follow.......
BY:.....Yooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuu!!!

BY: saltysalty!!
Mommy:... again??
BY *nod nod*
Mommy *sigh*

.......and here we go again..... for the 28th encore..!!

hello

Hey, had this conversation with your Papa a couple of days ago... I asked him if he remembered the first word he said to you on the day you were born...and he looked at me blankly. Hahhaha. I really don't think I expect an answer...it was more of a poser, so that your Papa can question me back and I'd have a answer!!!

So, what was my answer? It was the world's most commonplace greeting. It was, "hello". A very gentle one with no exclamation, no caps.

What's my point huh? I think the significance of that is that at your arrival, I've already recognised you as an individual and not something that I possess.

I do not, for example say... "I love you!" because that would have been pretty empty. Not untrue but it sounds silly when all you had was hours of labour pain and massive discomfort the weeks before leading up to the BIG day... so saying that must be a reassurance of sorts to only yourself. Like the poser earlier, "l love you" would probably demand a "I love you too!" in return. Hmmm....not likely since all the little purple person can do at that point is wail as loud as he can to fill those lungs of his with air.

Neither did I say..."You're so beautiful!" because I knew already quite early on that you are a boy... nor " Don't be naughty okay!" because that'll be a threat..and that's not very welcoming don't you think?

So, "hello" there dear little fellow. You are already allowed to become you before you even knew how to say "Don't want!".

CHEERS!

Mother's Day

...was spent at the beach with a very cute little boy who looked like a peacock in this picture...


...who enjoyed pouring sand into water and water into sand....




...and who basically had loads of fun with a tiny excavator, some buckets, a mini lego wheelbarrow and a borrowed spade from a 6 year old boy playing nearby.

Mummy was on this plane today!