LiL’deviL’s LittLe famiLy

How I wish! Only if Eddie is here I can do that peacefully.

This photo taken at The Curve. We must have gone there for lunch. They have this small playground on the floor that has a lot of baby shops. Don’t think I did any shopping this day.

The ‘long-awaited’ trip…hahaha… when we just went back end of last year. One very big difference is Ethan is charged 75% of the airfare now that he’s no longer an ‘infant’. Our total airfare comes up to about $2,000+. I got my dad to sponsor our airfare so all we have to pay for is the spending there, yay! Eddie is not going back this time, just me and Ethan. We are going to meet my sis and her son, Brandon. The last time we met was when our boys were 9 months old. It’s going to be havoc in the house this time…hahaha…can’t wait.

Our flight is at 3:00pm and we went to check in early this time, at noon, since I got ready earlier than usual. Short queue means we got out in about 20 minutes. Then we went to Ikea, situated across the airport, for lunch, and still had time to go home to rest for a little while before we go back to the airport. It was a good thing we went home because Ethan did a big #2 in the potty. Now I don’t have to worry on the plane. I even had a little bit of time to call sis and tell her that we were leaving soon. It’s nice to stay so close to the airport.

When I got to the gate I didn’t see any MAS aircraft, not even at the other gates (Adelaide Airport has expanded, but it’s still small). I checked the board and there wasn’t any sign that says delayed. I was wondering if we were taking another airline (Cathay Pacific was parked at the gate). A moment later there was an announcement and we were told to move to another gate (darn!) and that the flight will be delayed due to weather problem at Melbourne airport. Ethan normally naps at 12:30pm, I was saving his nap for the flight. He was still able to run around and let me chase after him with a big luggage *sigh*. After a while I took out his stuffs and let him do some colouring on the floor.

The flight arrived at 3:30pm and we were able to take off 30 minutes later. We got the window seats so only me and him. It’s good because I can sort of ‘lock’ him inside. When the seat belt signs were off I took him to the toilet for a wee and then let him take his nap. He asked for milk which I gave him and he finished. I only brought enough for one cup because usually he only drinks one cup a day, separated a few times. I just hoped that he will eat the meals offered.

The meals came when he was napping so I told the flight attendant to save the noodles for me, forgetting that we actually get two servings and I should’ve saved the pasta for him as well. When he woke up (in less than an hour) I asked for our meals and unfortunately they’ve finished the pasta and there’s only fish left. Ethan is a fussy eater and he doesn’t take fish (and many other food). So I thought I give him the noodles and I’ll take the fish. Mana tahu the noodles is spicy one, haiya! In the end he just ate some crackers.

He was good throughout the flight, I took him to the toilet three times, he sat in his seat and watched the in-flight entertainment, Monster’s Inc. Luckily I showed him the movie before so he’s familiar with it. I came prepared with a laptop with some dvds and a headphone but we never had to use it. I also brought him a new Thomas’ storybook which he hasn’t seen before, and Leap Frog’s My First LeapPad which he hasn’t play with before. He loved the book but doesn’t know how to use the LeapPad because the one he has before this uses fingers to touch and this one uses a pen. He was also happy to put on his seat belt when he saw the safety procedures shown at the beginning of the flight.

I don’t remember what time we arrived but I know we arrived at a gate B something, which means we didn’t have to walk far, thank goodness! My godsis was there to pick us up with the driver. Ahh… it’s nice to be back!

This is the third time we meet with Mrs. Wallace. The biggest difference from the last two times we met is she’s got a belly now. Congratulations! I’m so happy for them, Claudia will have a baby brother/sister to play with soon. Because of that they won’t be coming to Adelaide end of the year as always. I’m looking forward to meet them with their new arrival next year.

We went to her place today, as I really prefer to go to someone’s house (because my place is small and has got no backyard). We got to play in the backyard this time. We went to her place last time too but it was raining so we couldn’t go outdoor. When we arrived Mrs. Wallace made breakfast for me, croissant with ham and cheese, toasted. It may sound simple but it was yummy. Ethan had a fun time running around, going up and down the stairs, ’sliding’ down the concrete ramp, and eating buttered toast with Claudia.

We were invited to have lunch with them, I think Mr. Wallace was making a roast. But because it was close to Ethan’s nap time we had to go home.

Tonight is the first night I let Ethan go to bed without his nappy. We have been re-using dry nappies at night over and over until I had to throw them away because they were worn out. I think the longest we re-used was for a week. Still can use one but I thought it was too unhygienic. I mean, I won’t wear the same undies for a week, even if I only wore them at night. Anyway, I could have gotten Ethan without nappies at night earlier but I just had to be REALLY sure. Even before I started potty training he’s been dry at night. It’s very fortunate for us because normally children are potty trained in the daytime before the night, and I hadn’t even start training him that time. So I’m happy to report, first night without nappy was a total success!

You must be wondering why in the world would I put a picture of a pancake on my blog. This is not just any pancake, it’s ‘touched’ by a special pair of hands. Here’s the story…

Ethan would wake me up every morning at about 7:00am. For a person who sleeps late at night this is not very good. So occasionally I’d follow him out and then sleep on the sofa. If I go back to sleep in the room he would come and drag me out again. As I was sleeping I heard the fridge being opened and closed a few times. Normally we child-proof the fridge but I didn’t bother because I thought he was getting his milk. Later on I heard some clanking sounds from the cutlery holder, but still I didn’t bother. After a while I got suspicious so I got up and caught Ethan spreading butter on the pancake. At that time I was slightly angry and even scolded him a bit. The pancake was a bit old and I didn’t want him to eat it. Later on when I thought about it I laughed, only I remembered to take a picture. But too late to take Ethan in action.

Johnny’s wife invited me to join her and her son to the playgroup at a school nearby our area. It is held every Friday, 9:00-11:00am during the school term. The usual playgroup we go to is held at a church every Monday during school term. So the good thing about this playgroup is it’s held in the preschool’s classroom (they call it the Child Parent Centre - CPC). Preschool is on Monday through Thursday. It’s a good transition for the kids if parents decide to send their children to that school. I’ve searched a couple other schools nearby but this is the only one with a preschool class.

The classroom is quite big, filled with pictures, drawings, toys, arts and crafts. It has a small kitchen, child-sized toilet and an adult toilet. There’s a playground outside the classroom and the area is fenced with two safety gates (as in you need to go through two gates). It’s just the CPC that is fenced. The rest of the school is sort of open, children may go out or strangers may go in.

It’s $2 per family for each playgroup session and parents have to bring a piece of fruit to share.But that day that we went was the last session of the term so instead of a piece of fruit parents brought snacks. Same like our Monday playgroup, we have parties at the last session of each term. Ethan ate a mini pie (with meat inside) and a couple of banana cakes. I was so surprised he ate the pie and wanted a second, but he didn’t finish the second one.

Story time at the end of the playgroup.

I picked this part up from the CPC brochure:

Preschool Sessions
Children commence preschool sessions in the term following their 4th birthday. Each child is entitled to attend up to four preschool sessions per week, for up to four terms prior to commencing school. These sessions are held Monday and Thursday at 8:45-11:50am, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8:45am-3:15pm (2 sessions).
Pre-entry - Children are invited to attend one session per week during the term in which they have their 4th birthday.

Fees
$35 per term for preschool
$10 per term for pre-entry

Ethan likes to jump these days, especially on our bed. So I thought I might enrol him in kindergym and let him jump there…LOL! There’s one nearby our house, the same road. I called in to schedule a free tryout. They have Tuesdays and Thursdays session. I took Thursday because he’s got swimming on Tuesday. We were told to go for the last class of the day because not too many people. Indeed, there were less than 5 kids including Ethan.

We went into this large room with both adult and children gym equipment. Ethan was very excited to see the slide and went on immediately. He was just using that one slide until I showed him more slides and also other fun equipments. There’s this roller-coaster-sort of equipment where you put the car on top (very low only, about 40-50cm) of the ‘hilly’ slide, the child sits on the car and you push him off. Ethan got hooked on that instantly and went over and over again. Luckily there wasn’t many children there that he has to share with. Surprisingly he didn’t do the action I sent him there for in the first place. There were a few trampolines there and I even showed him to the big one where he jumped just for a tiny bit.

About 5 minutes into the class the instructor rings the bell and we all have to go into another room for songs to say hello. The same goes for 5 minutes before the class ends. Ethan didn’t want to go for either since he was wanted to play. I managed to get him in though. After the class I enrolled him for the next term. It was $56 per term plus $12 for the half-annual membership. There’s about 10 weeks in a term and the class is once a week, 45 minutes session. There was only less than 3 months to go before the financial year ends so the $12 is not worth it. I called the week after to cancel his enrolment. I told them that I might be going back to KL for a holiday in June. I’m going to put him in when the new financial year starts in July.

Yes, I’m back… for good hopefully.

Let me get back on track. Ethan’s first zoo visit. Eddie and I have been to the zoo before… we’ve run out of places to go… that time. There weren’t much to see but since the zoo is situated in the city I thought we’d join the annual membership so we can go whenever. The fee for annual family membership is $160 which include visit to Adelaide Zoo, Monarto Zoo and a few other zoos in Australia.

The weather was nice, not hot but instead a little chilly. Not many visitors today but still many children around. A lot of them rode on the zoo’s Kidz Kabz pusher. Ethan saw and wanted them. So we hired one for him, $5 hire, $5 deposit. He sat in it and I pushed him while Eddie pushed the stroller. We went to see our first animal - the crocodile. So of course I take Ethan out to see the croc. Mana tahu after that he refused to go back into the Kabz, just wanted to play with the door - open and close. *sigh* We returned the Kabz, after 5 minutes, for $5! This boy waste money.

From the entrance we walked to the children’s zoo which is at the other end from the main entrance. There is another entrance near the children’s zoo but we did not park there. Mostly farm animals there plus two kangaroos; one being petted and the other was taking a nap. Ethan wanted to pet the napping one and accidentally stepped on its hand and woke it up. Luckily the kangaroo didn’t give him a kick! After that we went to the animals contact area where there were goats, deers and turkeys (I think). Ethan went crazy chasing the turkeys around (poor turkeys).

Not much to see in the zoo actually. Wanted to show Ethan elephants also tak ada. Most of the animals were asleep/hiding so cannot see/find them. Hopefully can go to other state’s zoo to make use of the membership and also to see more animals.

I’ve been planning for this day for about a month, mostly about the food. I originally wanted to have it outdoor so I could invite more people but the plan failed. So we just had it at home and invited Eddie’s friends. The morning started as a usual Tuesday morning and we went for swimming class. On the way I stopped to buy some party accessories at The Party Superstore. At the class everyone sang the birthday song for Ethan (Eddie wasn’t there at that time so no pictures taken, he came back after the song). After swimming we went home and Ethan took his nap while we prepared the rest of the food. We had some done last night. Before we finished, Ethan woke up and I quickly turned on a dvd to keep him occupied while we continued our job and this is the result…

Last year Eddie cooked lots of heavy food and there were lots of leftovers. So this year I thought we just make finger food, easier to eat and also if there were any leftovers they will be easier to finish. We had:

Spring rolls and samosas (bought frozen, just need to bake in the oven)
Teriyaki chicken rice paper rolls
Prawn and avocado rice paper rolls
Sardine sandwich
Cheesy pastry twists
Aussie mini pizzas
Quesadillas with ham, cheese & tomato
Fruit salad and mangoes

I just wanted fruit salad then Eddie pandai pandai went and bought mangoes which ended up in the bin down the week. I’ve picked the most of the recipes, from the Women’s Weekly Fresh Food for Babies & Toddlers. Of course they wouldn’t have been done without Eddie’s help.

And here is the birthday boy, eating the mini pizzas (which he spat out later).

My ‘masterpiece’ of the day, lemon sponge cake…muahahaha…

…maybe if I hadn’t write on it it will look better. I baked this from a ready-made cake mix. Unfortunately the ‘bake’ feature of my oven doesn’t work so I ‘roasted’ the cake. It took soooooooooo long for the bottom part to get ‘roasted’ while the top part got burnt. I had to cut the top part off. Thank goodness for icing! Not that I did a very good job there too… Oh well, it’s going to end up in the stomach anyway.

Here is the photo of the day…

Everyone was looking at the camera and smiling. We sang the birthday song and asked Ethan to blow out the candles. He tried, but he was blowing down instead of front. Some of his ’spits’ might have gone on the cake…yum?

Pressies time!

These were given by Eddie’s friends, an activity centre, a jacket and a pair of Elmo’s pyjamas. More huge toys to fill our small house.

Clockwise from top left: Sesame Street garage from Eddie’s friend as well (Annabelle and Anthony); Little People blocks wagon from us; Cookie Monster’s t-shirt from Alice and Darrius; and a t-shirt and Travis toy (of Bob the Builder) from Johnny and family.

Thank you everyone for the lovely gifts.

Finally the leftovers…

Pretty good I’d say, good job eating everyone! I had these leftovers for lunch for the next few days and chuck the rest away. I finished the spring rolls and samosas, teriyaki chicken rolls, cheesy twists, mini pizzas, quesadillas and the fruit salad. Well done myself!

Also don’t forget to check out Ethan celebrating his birthday at playgroup.

I apologise for my 4-week absence on my blog and my non-reply on all your much-appreciated comments. I’m using the pc more than the laptop now because it’s so much faster. I’ve got too many files crammed up in my laptop that I have yet to delete/burn out. I do all my blogging on my laptop as the photoshop is here. Also my blog dashboard and PPP are two of the three homepages on my Internet Explorer so once I open the explorer I will automatically receive updates.

Thank you for all your concerns about my diet and Ethan’s speech development. The diet is not going very well for me yet as I’m not consistent and there are still a lot of snacks left in the cabinet, if you know what I mean. As for Ethan, we went for the blood test (horrible, blood drawn from the back of hand) and the iron level turned out to be normal. On the other hand we also found out that his red blood cells are a little smaller than normal and that he has a mild thalassemia. It’s not affecting him now but when he wants to have children in the future he needs to make sure that his partner does not have the same condition. As for his appetite the doctor recommended to use a multi-vitamin to help increase it, I think he needed the supplement too since he’s not eating much veges or fruits. We got a call back for both the hearing test and the speech therapy. First available appointment for hearing is in April, and first for speech is in four months. We’re not that worried so we can wait (also because our private health insurance does not cover speech therapy and I was told private therapist could be really expensive). I know he’s got no trouble hearing and with his speech, he’s babbling a lot more these days. Believe it or not, he learned those from his tv programs and also his alphabets phonics magnets.

I have also been busy searching for a house. I really want to move asap. Been to quite a few inspections but still haven’t found one that both of us quite like and within our budget. We’re thinking to build now but a good-sized land with a good-sized price in a good location is not that easy to find as well. Won’t be going to any inspections this weekend as I will be busy preparing for the big boss’ birthday. I can’t even invite my mummy friends over because the house is too small. It’s either Eddie’s friends or mine. Since I was only going to invite 3 friends with kids, I thought I’d do it when we do own a house. Also we’re closer to Eddie’s friends.

I will try to update the blog after Ethan turned 2. I will be filling up most of the missing dates from this month so watch out for new posts below this. But don’t expect too much, I don’t want to dissapoint! hahaha…