Yiu Yiu's recent developments

She can verbalise mummy’s, papa’s and her own name, as well as the area where we stay.
What’s your name?
My name is Yiu Yiu/Txxx Yxx Yxx
What’s papa’s name?
Jxxxx Txxx
What’s mummy’s name?
Lxxx Wxx Lxxx
Where do you stay?
Axx Dxxxxxxxx

Development wise, she knows how to put on her shorts/pants, and in the process of mastering the skills of putting on her blouse/t-shirt. She also goes to the potty by herself if she needs to pee and can perform the whole works – pulling down her shorts/pant, do her business, takes tissue to wipe herself clean and putting her pants/shorts back on.

Yesterday was hubby’s company Family Day at Desa Waterpark. Mummy forgot two very important things (slaps forehead TWO times!) – camera (hence no photos) and sunblock. So both mummy and Yiu Yiu became very dark coz we were in the water intermittently from 10am – 4pm. At the babysitter’s place today, the babysitter and her husband was lamenting over her dark (almost sunburnt skin), one after another. My smart alec suddenly blurted out, “You want to scold my mummy and papa or not? But they are not yet here wor.”

Yesterday...

Yesterday was hubby’s birthday. In the midst of a discussion with my boss, the receptionist called. “XXX, there’s something for you here, please come and pick it up when you are free.” I suspected something, and when I went to the reception, my suspicion was confirmed. What waited for me was….tada…

Actually besides hubby’s birthday, it’s also our 4th wedding anniversary. Hubby had never sent me flowers for our anniversary so it was quite a surprise. But funny I kinda suspected he’d do something this year. Anyway, we celebrated at Tony Romas last night. I had wanted to try Tony Romas for some time so we went to the outlet in Sunway Pyramid. Both of us ordered their famous ribs combo – his was with chicken while mine was with grilled shrimps. The ribs were good, succulent and tender, and came with four different sauces – original, extra hot, honey and another one which I can’t recall. Yiu Yiu had an ice-cream, since she already had dinner at the babysitter’s. So here's to hubby...

I must have been good lately

I must have been good lately, coz I get to go to the park or to the playground near my house almost every weekend. Last Sunday trip to the park in Taman Tun was especially good, coz the stream was literally gushing with water. I’ve been there several times but each time, the stream was quite dry. Funny, coz it hasn’t been raining that regularly. Anyway, no complaints as I love it when the stream is wetter.

Here I am enjoying myself in the water…

Trying to build sandcastle but mummy forgot to pack my tools…

Toning my abs after the ice-cream treat…yeah, I’m a vain pot!

Imagination and narration

As with any toddler, Yiu Yiu is rather imaginative – speaking to her toy lamb, talking on the phone by herself (and imitating two characters at the same time), improvising stuff and imagining them to be her spoon, bowl, plate, etc.

She’s also good in finding excuses. She was eating jelly one day and dropped some on the floor.
Papa: You see, told you to be careful, don’t drop the jelly on the floor.
Yiu Yiu: No ah, it’s not me lah, it’s the spoon

Her memory is becoming stronger and sometimes, out of the blue, when something sparked her memory, she would narrate back to us incidents which happened few days earlier. For example, Yihao vomited when we had dinner to celebrate mum’s and younger brother’s birthday. For several days following that, she would bring up the story of Yihao vomiting. And over the weekend, we bought some keropok lekor home. Father and daughter were happily munching away. When papa finished the last piece, Yiu Yiu got so upset and cried. Out of the blue, at dinner tonight:
Yiu Yiu: Just now (she always use just now for something that happened in the past) papa finished the keropok, then I look at papa like that (gives a dagger stare), then I cry and say “Mummy carry Yiu Yiu” (that's what she always do when she gets upset)

Rationalization

Yiu Yiu is quite good at rationalizing things, in her own quirky ways.

We have stacks of papers and colour pencils on her little study table so she can scribble. Whenever she sits at her table and scribbles, she’ll say, “I do homework first, you don’t disturb me”. The other day, I disturbed her:
Mummy: Yiu Yiu do homework ah. Yiu Yiu want to go to school or not?
Yiu Yiu: Don’t want
Mummy: Why don’t want?
Yiu Yiu: I don’t have school clothes (Huh! What a good reason for not wanting to go to school)
Mummy: Mummy buy you school clothes, then you can go to school lor.
Yiu Yiu: OK
After a few seconds…
Yiu Yiu: Er…cannot cannot (in a very ‘kan cheong’ tone)
Mummy: Why cannot?
Yiu Yiu: I don’t have school shoes wor.

While playing with her baby doll…
Yiu Yiu: Mummy mummy, baby want to shee shee already.
Mummy: Take her to the potty la
Yiu Yiu: Puts baby on the toy potty
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, baby wear clothes how to shee shee wor? (the baby doll is wearing an overall)
Mummy: Ya wor…nevermind lah, let baby shee shee through her clothes la.
Yiu Yiu: Then her clothes wet wet lor.
Mummy: Never mind lah, afterwards put her under the fan to dry her clother lor.
Yiu Yiu: Cannot lah, afterwards baby cold cold lah.

Antics of a 32-month toddler

I have a bottle of water by the bedside table, to wet my throat when I wake up during midnight to make milk for Yiu Yiu. Yeah (sigh!)…she still asks for milk in the middle of the night. The only time I can have uninterrupted sleep is when I travel for work. Anyway, last night Yiu Yiu tried to drink from the bottle, and was caught redhanded by me.
Mummy: Don’t spill water on the bed ah…
Yiu Yiu: No lah, mattress only (coz she was standing on the mattress we placed by the bed)

Yiu Yiu looks to play water and always will ask to wash her hands so she can have some fun with water. I was washing hand with Yiu Yiu standing outside the bathroom door, and as usual, she wanted to wash her hands too. I carried her to the sink and let her wash her hands. When she asked for soap,
Mummy: No need lah, mummy also didn’t use soap
Yiu Yiu: No ah, just now I stand there and watch you wash hand, you got use soap ah
Oppss! Caught mummy lying

She loves taking photos…whenever she sees me taking out my camera, she’ll terrorize me until I give up and pass her the camera. Here’s some of the more decent shots she took.

Top: taken at a friend's wedding dinner; Bottom: decorative stuff at home. The two photos on the right are taken from her eye level, hence the view from bottom up.

If I walk faster than her up/down the stairs, she will call out and look pitifully, “Mummy, you don’t want me meh?”

When we reach home after any outing, I’ll normally carry Yiu Yiu from the car to the main door. However, last Sunday, she wanted papa to carry her instead. This is the conversation that took place:
Mummy: You want papa to carry ah? You don’t want me meh? (to humour her, as she likes to say this).
Yiu Yiu: I want you. I want papa also.
Mummy: Then why you don’t want mummy to carry?
Yiu Yiu: Mummy tired mah…so I ask papa to carry la…

We keep a cane at home, for the times when Yiu Yiu misbehaved beyond our limits. Hubby is often the one who wield the cane at her. One day, Yiu Yiu just refused to put away her toys after playing and after much persuasion, hubby decided to threaten her with the cane. However, he couldn’t remember where he placed the cane and was searching around for it when the guilty party blurted out with a cheeky smile on her face, “Papa, your cane missing already ah?” I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Avillion Port Dickson

I was in Avillion last week for 3-day training. I’ve been there twice for meetings before but this time, for some reasons, Avillion seems a lot more attractive this time. I think they improved on the landscaping quite significantly, as well as improving the condition of the beach. The water chalets are as usual, very impressive with a large day bed which can easily sleep another two persons, besides the twin/queen bed. The highlight is of course the open air shower, where you can shower under the moon or the sun, with birds flying overhead. Romantic or not? My only grouses – food at the coffee house was rather poor, and there were plenty of flies.


But I guess what changed my perception most is that I’m looking at Avillion from the eyes of a mother. Avillion is a really nice place to bring the kids. There’s a big children’s pool with water slide, a pet farm with rabbits, chicken and tortoises roaming freely, with designated time where children can participate in feeding or bathing of the animals. There’s also a kids area, Kids’ Cabin, with a playground, toys, and plenty of activities designed by the centre’s coordinators. I think Yiu Yiu would really love this place, so perhaps this calls for a family trip to Avillion.

Children's playground and pet farm

My first photobook

I had wanted to make a photobook for the longest time. There are soooo many photos which are waiting to be sorted out – besides photos of my recent trips, there’s Yiu Yiu’s photos (I had not developed a single photo since her birth), my pregnancy shots, and my wedding day and dinner photos. Can’t beat that huh!

A couple of weeks ago, I called up both Photobook and Pixart as I wanted to view their samples. Photobook happened to have samples available for viewing in a all-in-one wedding shop in Section 14, just a hop and skip away from my office so I dropped by one day during lunch to view it. I liked what I saw, but had wanted to view Pixart as well, before deciding which one to work on. However, Pixart can only be viewed in Taman Tun and by appointment only. And the guy is only available between 10am and 4pm, if I’m not mistaken so I never got to see him or the sample. Anyway, Photobook was giving away 30% discount for Mother’s Day promotion, which was extended till June. I decided to give it a try by doing a medium-sized book of my trip to Siem Reap last year. The software was surprisingly very easy to use, but nonetheless, I still spent 3 nights (after Yiu Yiu had slept) to complete it. I sent it over to Photobook two weeks ago and when I got back to the office last week after being away for several days, the courier parcel was waiting for me at my desk.

I’m quite happy with the results, and am currently working on a bigger book on our Taiwan trip early this year. However, since the promotion had already ended, I’ll have to pay the full price for it.

First trip to the cinema

My last movie at the cinema was when I was pregnant with Yiu Yiu, which was almost three years ago. I hardly watched any movies since Yiu Yiu came along. As with most mums, there’s hardly any time for myself after having a child. Sis gave us a coupon for two free GSC movie tickets recently, and hubby and I thought that perhaps we can try to catch a movie with Yiu Yiu, now that she can understand instructions. Worst case scenario, we thought we’d just buy enough popcorn to last her the whole movie.

We decided on Kung Fu Panda, since she could probably enjoy herself a bit as well with the comedy. We went to GSC 1-Utama last Sunday but my oh my, there were so many people. I guess we are really so outdated and didn’t anticipate the crowd. Needless to say, we couldn’t get any tickets. As the coupon expires on July 2, we tried our luck again last evening. The queue was rather long for a weekday, but we then realized that Wednesday is the discount movie ticket day. By the time our turn came up, there were only five seats left, but these were all single seats. Luckily, it was just past 6.50pm, and reservation tickets were open for sale. We got ourselves seats on the third row from the back.


We had prepared Yiu Yiu for the trip, by telling her the past few days that we’d take her to the cinema, where it would be dark and there’ll be a big TV screen. She lasted through the advertisements and movie previews, and after each one, she’d turn to me and ask, “Finish already ah?” When the movie actually started, she watched for about 30 minutes while muching on her popcorns before getting restless and asking to go out. I diverted her attention by pointing out interesting things from the movie. That did the trick but after some time, she got tired and decided to rest on my shoulder. Towards the end of the movie, she said,
Yiu Yiu: I wanna go home already.
Mummy (trying to buy time): A little while more OK.
After a little while
Yiu Yiu: A little while already, I wanna go home already.
Mummy: A little while some more OK.

Luckily the movie ended soon after. Phew! At least she lasted the whole movie. As we were walking down towards the exit, I’m not sure if I took a wrong step, or the carpet was faulty, but the heels of my shoes broke.
Yiu Yiu: What happened?
Mummy: My shoes broke lor.
Yiu Yiu: The uncle stepped on your shoes ah?
Mummy: No, I think the carpet was spoilt.
Yiu Yiu: Never mind lah, Yiu Yiu and papa buy you new shoes la
Mummy: You got money meh?
Yiu Yiu: Got, I take out my ang pow money, then I buy for you lor.

So you say, touched or not…and here’s the price I paid for the free movie.