Ethan is 2!

24 months old.....



My baby is 2 today!!! Big deal for me. It has been 2 years but I still remember every moment of his birth. I've forgotten about the pain though (no epidural there). Although it has been tiring taking care of a demanding baby, then an active toddler, I never regret a single bit of it. I insisted to take care of him at night instead of sending him to a nanny 24 hours, by which I will have the luxury of undisturbed sleep. I'm glad I made the choice and I will go the same way 'IF' I have a second one. Errrr.....Don't know when the 'IF' will happen.

Some updates on Ethan:
Weight: (will check tonight)
Height: 84.5 cm

Milk:
He is taking more milk now. 8 oz. each feed. 4-5 feeds a day. He normally drinks at 9.30 p.m. and if he sleeps late, he will ask for another round, sometimes at 10.30 p.m. (just 1 hour after the previous feed).

Still taking his early morning feed, usually at around 4-5 a.m.

Meal:
He is very Asian. Must have rice or noodles. When we go out, we must go to Chinese restaurant or any other restaurants that serve rice or noodles with soup. He dislikes bread, cakes, cheese and Western food. He takes French toast sometimes.

Still taking porridge at the nursery. On weekends, I normally boil soup for the family. For Ethan, I will boil noodles and then add the soup base (my version of soup noodles). He likes it better than porridge. I guess he gets bored with 5 days of porridge already. For dinner he will have soup and rice. Sometimes I will steam fish for him too.

He dislikes vegetables and most of the fruits. He only takes banana and papaya sometimes. When he has constipation, I give him half a bottle of Vitagen. A bottle will cause loose stool.

For supplement, he is still taking Scott's Emulsion everyday.

Sleeping time:
He sleeps late now. On weekdays, he naps around 2 hours at the nursery and will sleep at around 10pm at night.

On weekends, he naps at 3pm! Sometimes at 4.30 p.m.!! He normally takes 3 hours of nap and will sleep very late at night. Earliest is 11pm.

Speech:
He says quite a lot of words and picks up fast too (have to mind my words there) but not all are pronounced perfectly. Sometimes, he got so frustrated when we couldn't understand what he said. The funny ones are:

• di di yen = little lamb (which means he wants the song book with the song 'Mary had a little lamb' and wants me to sing. Took quite some time for us to figure this one out)
• bring bring = guitar
• ah ger = tiger
• ah bern = elephant

He can't count yet. He will start with 'one' then continue counting with his own numbers in his own language.

Pre-school:
He was upgraded to the oldest group at the nursery (most of them are 3 years old) and a teacher was hired to teach them. He is coping quite well but sometimes will cry in the middle of activities so they will transfer him back to the younger group (no teacher, free activities).

He did a few crafts with the help of the teacher. I don't know which part he actually did but I think 99% were done by the teacher. Some of the crafts he did:

Ethan's 2nd Birthday Celebration

23 months & 4 weeks old.....

We celebrated Ethan's birthday on Friday, 16 May and Sunday, 18 May. Both Daddy and Mummy were too lazy to host a party at home so we decided to go out for dinner. Friday's dinner was at the Golden Sun Club while Sunday's one was at the Zun Kitchenette. I personally prefer the Zun Kitchenette as the food was much better and the place is more cosy.

As for the highlights of the events, which were the cakes, we bought a New York cheese cake from Bakerzin and a jelly cake (can't remember the name of the shop but it's at Ikano). Ethan doesn't quite like cakes so he didn't take any of those. He enjoyed the candle blowing sessions though.

The yummy cheese cake.

The colourful jelly cake.

Trying to blow the candle before the birthday song was sung.


Cheeky faces

Let's Go To The Zoo....

23 months & 6 days old.....

......There are lots of things to do...

I used to hear the song when I was young. I think it was a KFC song because there used to be a KFC restaurant at the zoo. Well, it's no longer there.

We brought Ethan to the zoo two Saturdays ago (19 April 2008). We planned to go there before I left for my overseas trip but we didn't make it that time because I had to prepare/ pack for my trip. So hubby brought us there after I returned.

We arrived at around 12.30p.m. and we visited the elephants first. Ethan was terrified when he first saw the elephants and giraffes. He held on tightly to hubby all the time. Shortly after we entered there was a light shower. We waited for the rain to stop and proceeded with our walk. The weather was extremely humid after the rain and all of us sweat like crazy.

Held on tightly to daddy.


It's not moving that's why he's not scared.

The second agenda was to take the train ride so that we can rest a little before heading to the animal show. Ethan kept saying 'too too train' everytime a train passed by. The services of the train has been improved. It comes with a guided tour now and the rides are more frequent.

After the train ride, we went to the animal show. Ethan was awed by it especially when the birds performed. We decided to leave at around 3.30 p.m. as it was way past Ethan's nap time and I can see he was exhausted. He slept in the car shortly after finishing his milk (with the milk bottle still dangling in his mouth).

Couldn't contain his amusement with the birds' show.
This expression lasted for a good 10 minutes.

All worn out. He dropped the bottel from his mouth
just when I pressed on the the camera.

I would say there are no drastic changes at the zoo compared to my last visit about 5 or 10 years ago, but I think the animal show and the train ride have been improved. Oh yeah, no more KFC there, which is pretty sad for me because I still remember sitting inside licking my finger while watching the flamingos outside.

I think it's a great visit for Ethan although he's scared of most of the big animals. After the visit, he showed great interest on animals especially the figurines we bought for him a couple of weeks ago. Before this, he didn't show particular interest on them but now, he would bring them to the daycare and whenever we go out. I wouldn't mind to bring Ethan there again.

Went Crazy about Flowers!

I always love to see flowers and of course to receive them. Unfortunately, I can count with my one hand (it's one hand which means 5 fingers ar) how many times I have received flowers from hubby. Ehem!!! Anyway, I took the opportunity of my trip to Brussel to stay one night in Amsterdam. It was a rare opportunity as my office booked me on a flight which transit in Amsterdam and it's Spring! Apa lagi, I extend my stay there and went to visit Keukenhof! I tell you, it was really really breathtaking! Some of the photos taken....

Change in Sleeping Time

22 months, 2 weeks & 3 days old.....

My little boy has turned from an early bird to a night owl. The crying episode in the middle of the night has come to an end since last Saturday (29 March 2008). It also marked the beginning of him sleeping late at night. He used to sleep early, as early as 7.30 p.m. but on a typical night he will sleep at around 8-8.30 p.m. and will wake up at around 7 a.m.

Last Saturday, I brought Ethan to my mum's place and we stayed overnight there. I let him slept late because he can wake up late the next morning unlike weekdays when he has to wake up at around 7a.m. He slept at around 10.30 p.m. and surprisingly he didn't cry that night. So, I was wondering if the crying episode was due to his early bed-time. It sounds ridiculous but that's the only night he didn't cry and I couldn't think of other reasons. The routine before bed-time was the same.

Ever since that night, he has become a night owl. He refused to go to bed at the normal hours and he can stay up until 11.30 p.m.! The earliest time he would sleep now is 10+ p.m and he still have to wake up at 7 a.m. If it's not because that he has to wake up early in the morning, I don't mind him sleeping late. I'm worried that he does not have enough sleep.

Every night when we brought him to the room, he will refuse to let us switch off the light and because of that he can continue to play until the wee hours. Sometimes when we have no choice, we just have to switch off the light. And yes, and he will wail, which will lead to only 2 endings:
- He cries himself to sleep or
- We give up and he sleeps very late

I think I cannot switch him back to the old sleeping time. I just don't know why the change is so sudden and not gradually. Is this also part of the terrible-two syndrome?

My mischievous little one. Wanted to
be put inside the washing machine
but regretted it shortly afterward.

P/S: There will be no updates on this blog from 9-16 April coz Mummy will be away.

Nightmares?

22 months & 5 days old.....

Ethan has been crying in the middle of night for the past 2-3 weeks, for no apparent reason. It's frustrating because we do not know what was the reason he cried so pitifully every night. When we tried to pacify him or hug him, he refused to let us touch him and will say 'NO! MUMMY NO!' and kick and cry even louder. He vomitted a couple of times. Scolding did not work either. Most of the time one of us will have to sleep with him and he will stop a few minutes after that. Milk helps sometimes. When he wakes the next morning, he's perfectly normal and sometimes very cheerful. I'm really puzzled.

I tried very hard to control my temper when caught in this kind of situation. I can feel the blood just rushed up my head when all the efforts failed to pacify him. I really, almost landed my palm on his face. I smacked his leg last night though. I was really really frustrated. One small smack and he cried louder after that.

Thinking about it again now, I wonder what makes us (or rather me) think that a smack will stop a child from crying? It doesn't really make sense right? It only let out our frustration but will never solve the problem. The child will definitely continue crying when he's smacked coz he's in pain or maybe shocked. I know in situation like this, we should take 5 and cool down but in the middle of the night, all I want is to sleep and how to take 5?

Two nights back, the same thing happened. He just cried and cried and cried and then pointed to the door and said 'Neh! Neh! Neh!'. I got up and carried him to the door. He wanted to go out so I brought him out and let him down. He stood there clinging to his favourite pillow and gave me a clueless face. He then sat on the floor. I asked him "Are you ok now?' 'Happy?' 'Can we go back to sleep?' 'Come, lets go to sleep'. No response from him. Then I went in to the room and asked the same questions. He got up and leaned against the wall, hiding himself from me.

Not knowing how to deal with him, I went back to the room and climbed up my bed. I told hubby (who had since gone back to sleep) 'Look at your son. Look what is he doing.' He held up his head to look and that time Ethan came out to peep at us. When he saw me on the bed, he started to cry and wail very badly. I couldn't bear to see him cry like that so I dragged myself up again and carried him back to the room and decided to sleep with him. Thank goodness, the crying slowly stop.

I don't know what kind of phase he is going through now. Initially I thought the crying was due to the sickness, that he was uncomfortable. But he has fully recovered for almost a week now and the crying still goes on. On a good night, there will be one episode of crying and on a not-so- good night, there will be 2 or 3 episodes. Just hope that this phase will end soon, I mean real soon.

Doing some puzzles before bed time - his latest favourite

Bad Things Come In Three?

22 months & 2 days old....

This will be the third consecutive post about Ethan being sick. Another episode of fever on Thursday (20 March 2008) evening and this time was because of throat infection.

(Updated on 24 March 2008)
I was only half way through the post when the Internet connection failed me. So, I have to update it now. Sorry to Darren's mummy that you have to read my unfinished post but thanks for your comments.

Actually, the throat infection came from me. I wasn't feeling well last week but I couldn't refrain myself from kissing Ethan. Hehehe....

Anyway, the fever lasted for a day and he is ok now (finger crossed). He was all well and happy before the fever. We went to the mall for lunch and some marketing. No symptoms or what so ever. Suddenly the fever came in the evening. We brought him to see the paed the next morning and he confirmed that it's due to throat infection. No antibiotic this time because he said it's not very serious and let the body fight for it. However, if the fever persists for another day then we should go back and ask for the antibiotic. He's right. Ethan won the war this time without antibiotic. A slight relieve.

Sigh......I am so paranoia now. I will touch his forehead whenever I wake up in the middle of the night (worry that he might have fever) and check his throat whenever he laugh or obligingly open his mouth when I ask 'where is your teeth?' (to check for throat infection and blisters).

Enjoying his carousel ride at the mall before he had the fever