Stuff we do

"Very good very good"
Yesterday, Eliza had a trip with my in-laws to NTUC to buy groceries and they passed by the toy section. I'm not sure if my mil had planned to buy the toys for her or that she saw her so excited at seeing the toys that she wanted to buy something for her. Some of the toys must be quite high up so my mil pointed to a ironing toy set and asked her if that's the one she wants and Eliza replied "yes, yes. very good very good".
My mil was so amused by her that she just had to recount it to all of us a few times. I think Eliza must have found it quite fun to say that so I've been hearing it the whole day (or more like b4 i go out for work and when i came back)

SCO Children's Concert
This is Eliza's 2nd 'formal' concert. The first one was at Victoria Concert Hall with complimentary tickets given by Lynette. She was only about almost 12 months then...i think. When i saw one organized by SCO at quite an affordable price of $12 per person (yes Eliza has to pay too!), i just had to bring her. I know she loves music and somehow orchestras seem to captivate her quite a bit with the big group of people playing instruments together.



So i prepared her the night before, telling her that we're going to the concert etc etc. Too bad it was a friday, else Ww would have joined us as well.
Anyway the concert teaches kids about the terms for fast and slow in music & about conducting. Eliza wasn't paying much attention when all the talking was on, but when the music played she was moving or conducting away. The only 'inconvenience' was she saw the kindergarten kids going out of their seats and she asked me where they're going. I said that they're going the toilet and she wanted to go too! We went. She sat on the toilet bowl and declared that she was done. No pee. geee..
She had a good time i know. When i was explaining to her about an advertisement with an outdoor concert, she declared that she wanted to go to a concert. So now she has gotten the concept of a concert.

Helix Bridge Walk
So we did the usual stuff that most other Singaporeans did, walk the Helix bridge. We were just finding somewhere to go and something to do. It was a nice walk anyway, with Ww carrying her quite a bit cos she was scared. I can't remember what of.

Art park


Some hexagonal step lights that captivated her so much she didn't realize we were so far away.


Sungai Buloh
Yes we went there...i can't believe it is in such a ulu part of the world. Even the drive in was so ulu. My sil & her boys were there for a walk. And we were to join them though we were quite late.Eliza was still napping then but woke up after 1hr of nap cos the terrain was just too bumpy as we pushed the stroller. Anyway we saw squirrels, horseshoe crabs, lots of fishes, lots of monitor lizards. It was fun tho the route was just too long. I'll probably plan for another trip there someday. the 5hr walk to the freshwater pond sounds quite intimidating though.


Drawing
We're doing a lot of drawing...or more like Eliza giving us the crayon/colour pencil and asking us to colour/draw. It's her super favourite time cos maybe she has our attention during the drawing time.

I try to take photos of the drawings that we've made...usually with scribbles added by Ww, my mil and me...occasionally her cousins or our guests.

Recently she has taken a full love for painting...she super loved it when we did it during the parent-toddler class...now she'll mention it almost everyday, especially since we have been doing painting (from finger to hand to sponge to paintbrush painting) at home.

Stuff Eliza says and does
- She'll pat hers or our tummy and say "tummy big big" in her very funny way. So much for daddy getting her to say i'm fat!
- She saw the floor outside the kitchen toilet to be slightly wet and she asked "why so wet?" in the tone my mil would have said
- I was telling her that i'm going to work and she said "mummy come back", as if wanting me to come back immediately. so i had to convince her that i'll be back, at night.
- she/we farted and she'll in her very amused manner ask "who poot poot?!"

It's such a joy seeing my little girl grow up, hearing her talk (and hearing myself through her cos what i say, she picks it up and takes after me somehow), learning with her and knowing her. Ww & I will swoon over the stuff she has done that day and is obviously proud of her, like every parent would be.

Sleep talking

We always sleep around 3 hours after Eliza goes to sleep and i wonder if it's like the peak time for sleep talking because many-a-times we have been surprised by her talking in the middle of the night. Sometimes we can't make out what she said but we have heard her sing (jingle bells & the gongxi song). Ok the singing is just one phrase but it was hilarious enough for us to stop and try not to laugh too loudly. Awww...she's soo cute. I wonder what goes on in her dreams.

Recently, Ww and I was going into the room to sleep and we heard her longest sleep talk.
"I want to go playground. I want milk. I want to pee. I want to 大便." Oooohh!! hahaha! so cuttte :)

Well you can guess what we have been talking about all the time. :P

Sunday & Monday

Sunday
- church service at 830am.
I've gotten used to not bathing her on sunday mornings (except for washing her butt else she gets rashes from sitting in her wet diapers at night), cos we just don't have time, esp if i factor in us waking up late / i haven't packed bag / Ww is on duty. No zipping out of the house in record time like 15mins, cos there's always 101 things to do, and even when i leave the house i just wonder if i had forgotten something. I've got to also factor in Eliza's morning milk, changing and getting her ready, it's never a good idea to rush a toddler or stop one from her task in a swift manner, it's just a recipe for an unnecessary meltdown.

- For logistics and routine sake, we were always at the 1st service which is, on sunday terms, quite early. Since there's no sunday school for toddlers during the 830am service (i think there's only 2 or 3 toddlers in this service), i usually prefer that we stay through the worship part and move off to the 'cry room' during the sermon, lest she makes too much noise. But, if Amos is there, she doesn't want to go in, so i'm left to hang around outside with her. Now that she is more able to understand the meaning of being quiet, i'm able to stay in the service with her and listen to the sermon quite peacefully (that is on good days lah). I don't expect kids her age to understand much of what goes on in the service so it's finding ways to keep her occupied. Well...actually she usually has her morning snack during that time, and just this sunday, i realized i could bring crayons & paper! why didn't i think of that b4. *slap head* She was really quite busy colouring for almost 30mins! after which we had to go out for some stomping on the grass and plucking flowers/weeds.

- Mother's day lunch with mum & sis @ Paramount Tung Lok. yummmsss...and Eliza almost finished the peanut snack. gosh. she 'mmmm-ed' the delicious Ee-fu noodles, till she somewhat choked on it and didn't want it anymore. By the time we were finishing, she was quite tired out. Anyway, we had a good meal, walked about Parkway before making our way to Danny&Shuyi's housewarming to hear great news :)

Monday
...is our cycling day.
The plan was to cycle from Changi Beach to East Coast and finish off with play at Polliwogs. We started late cos we woke up late (8am...that's late on Eliza's terms..and usually if we can sleep in, she's always the first to wake up). I also had to wash clothes!! So by the time we set off it was 9am.

- Changi ride to ECP was a more leisurely one than the 1st cycling trip. The only discomfort is the sweltering hot sun...i could feel myself being tanned away! Eliza has it easiest of all and other than the very loud planes landing and taking off as we cycled past the airport runway, she nicely hid in daddy's shade, eating her cheerios away.
As usual, she was singing away, or putting her fingers in her ears, waving hi to me, ringing the bell, 'pushing' daddy's peddling thighs.
I wonder where we're going next!
(photos in the hp which i can't transfer out yet)

Friday and Saturday

We have had a great weekend!

Friday:
(ok this part wasn't so great, cos i had to go for my dentist appointment that cost me $400)
- Went to expo to check out the Borders sale / Metro sale / Baby fair. Kinda disappointing. I also bought finger paints there for Eliza that i later realized was cheaper at Toy R' Us :S
Realized that Eliza spots things i don't usually see, and sometimes it's a challenge to figure out what she says cos it's either not the most accurate pronunciation or she's at a different height from me.
Anyway she saw Clifford the dog mascot at the Borders sale walking around, and kept trying to point it out to me, but it took me like forever to realize that.
- Went for a date with Ww which didn't start out too well cos he was quite upset about the exorbitant price the dentist charged...he felt that it was way overpriced.

Saturday:
- Breakfast at Cartel. More for us than for her since she doesn't really eat bread and egg. So only the hashbrowns was a hit with her.
- Finger painting! It was a mess! Still it was super fun for her to have free reign of how she wants to mess the paper with the paints.

She's giving me her very sweet, i'm-all-ready smile :)


Kids are really more unreserved with mess...i would only use my 1 finger, (also cos i was taking photos). At one point she even used her foot! ahhh!! drove me nuts for a while cos after that it was on the floor!


I thought i only wanted to use two colours, and it got more fun as i added on the colours. Here's her finished product. You'll know which is done by her and which is done by me.


- Actually finger painting was really quite a short activity to do, even though there's still like cleaning up to do. Her cousins were over at our place but when she woke from her nap, they were going to take theirs so we had quite some time to spare.

Eliza started playing on the sofa, playing "where's eliza". Of course, having loads of fun.


- As some of the stuffed toys fell on the floor she started to arrange them and getting them to sleep. It's the beginnings of a lot more imaginative play, we've seen it on and off the past few months but now she's like great friends with her toys. She gets them to sleep, wakes them up, asks them if they "want to pee?", cleans their butt (by pinching it using her fingers. the first time i saw it, it was just tooooo hilarious!), kisses them etc. Gosh, it's so much of a reflection of what we do day in day out at home, and she's reenacting it with her toys.


She sleeps with them too. :P


- We had a good dinner and she ate till her tummy was quite big! :O on many a days when i don't cook, (except for this week), i would go to the coffee shop to buy 菜饭. It's so much better than buying noodles and i can choose to have a good variety of veg to meat. Just last week, she declared to my mil that she doesn't want to eat porridge and would rather have ruce, so our slow cooker has retired to the storeroom.

- After that we sent my mil off to the airport as she was going to Hokkiado. Which means that i'm home all week!! Anyway, the airport is a fantastic running space...which Eliza made us 'exercise' by running and running and running. If we didn't budge, she'll come back and nudge us at our thighs (that's how tall she is). Gosh i had a mini workout, but i guess she had a bigger workout!