Maybe it was Keira “hardly” crying at kindy, Sean giving us huge smiles and gurgling laughter, and a weekend of good food and good friends.

I am definitely alot less stressed now with the extra pair of hands helping around the house.

I only lose my temper once a week, instead of once a day! (Of course in the good ‘ol child free days, I NEVER lost my temper. I was Miss Congeniality. Seriously.)

It’s the school holidays now. Yup, we’ve joined the ranks of parents who are now saddled with the “What do we do with the kids now that they’re home all day” dilemma.

The house is really so peaceful when Keira is at kindy. The moment she steps back into the house, I’m on my feet going to and fro getting her snacks and fruits and telling her not to climb this or throw that… non-stop until bedtime.

No kindergarten means, four extra hours of Keira a day. I sound like a horrible parent don’t I? But I think all parents know what I mean when I say, you need a break from your kids once in awhile!

So, planning a short local holiday this week. Mainly to entertain Keira, and to give us all a treat:)

Can’t wait!

Lamb shank in its various forms is one of our favourite family dish. I usually make it western style, slow cooked in red wine and balsamic vinegar.

But it is also delicious as a curry. For this dish, I used M-I-L’s curry chicken recipe and replaced the chicken with the lamb.

The lamb is so tender the meat falls off the bone, and the sauce is absolutely lovely with rice!

So CY must be trying to start his son early as he caught these amazingly cute photos of Sean playing with a ball.

This one below rivals Keira’s famous Eskimo baby shot.

Look at that smile!

After having a daughter and then a son, I’ve noticed that I do treat them differently. I coddled Keira more and was (still am) very protective of her. But with Sean, I think of him as being tougher and stronger, and will probably encourage him to do more sporty stuff.

Quite sexist aren’t I? And I thought I was quite a forward thinker. What if Keira wants to play football?

In other news, my phone got stolen today while I was shopping at the Ramadhan pasar near our house. Not a nice experience to find a hole in your bag and something taken.

Luckily I can still use back my old phone and same number. Just have to get a new sim card in. The stolen phone was very problematic anyway. Didn’t have a very stable system and it was quite faulty.

Will wait awhile to get over this loss before looking for a new (i)Phone.

Time really goes by sooooo fast. Just a few posts ago I was complaining about this baby kicking and kicking me inside the tummy. Now he is a big, strong boy and unfortunately still kicking and kicking.

He is adorable though. Sean has the cutest smile ever. He is so cute I’m tempted to enter him into some baby contests… Haha, yes I am a besotted mother.

The little dimple that appears when he breaks into a grin is irresistable. All of us, including Keira jie jie can’t help but smile back.

At five months old, Sean just learnt how to rollover. So now, everytime we put him down, he will flip and pop his head up, big eyes looking around alertly.

He is learning how to grab things too. Reaching his chubby hands out to grab whatever comes within reach. And of course, stuff it into his mouth. He can actually play with toys. i say this like I sound surprised because Keira was never into baby toys. This little tiger is tho.

Today, he also did something quite cute. Well, if you aren’t a parent of a baby you wouldn’t find it very exciting, but I thought it was very amusing. Sean reached out to me and patted me on the arm over and over again. As if trying to get my attention.

Quite advanced behaviour (says the besotted mother ).

From what I can tell, he is developing faster on all points compared to Keira at the same age.

The one thing he is slower at is sleeping longer at night. He is STILL on a 2-3 hour cycle, whereas Keira at this age I believe was only waking up once at night.

I’m still breastfeeding, but starting to teach him to drink formula from a bottle. Maybe he will sleep longer with formula.

I think he is also actually ready to start eating solids. Cos he stares and stares at us when we eat. And when Keira cheekily tries to offer him something he wants to eat it.

So time for me to start puree-ing food again soon!

His daytime naps aren’t very long. At the moment he is having four 30 min to 1 hour naps in the day, then sleeping from 9.30pm to approx 8.30am (he will wake up for milk then go back to sleep again).

And he’s trying to talk. Mostly “Aaah, aaah ooo”. Sometimes “Aa ge” and other sweet cooing sounds.

That’s Sean boy’s 5 month old update. Can’t believe he is almost 6 months old and can start eating real food soon. Slow down boy, slow down!

- finally toilet trained (in the day time)

- going to kindergarten

- playing games like a pro on the computer

- taking photos and changing settings like a pro on the camera

- talking about everything

- spelling out her own name

- so playful, so cheeky, so naughty

- loving her little bro with his “cute little round head”

- and I quote “the prettiest girl in the world!”.

So we didn’t have a big party for her this year, but we had several little ones spread out over a few days, which was great as it was like she had a brithday every day for almost a week!

First, Japanese buffet with Ah Gong & Ah Ma:

Then a simple lunch at home with a tiramisu cake, which was just another excuse to let her blow out the candles

Presents from Ah Gong, Ah Ma & Granduncle were opened another night. She loves the shopping trolley!

And finally celebrating at kindergarten with a proper cake:

Keira specially requested this ABC cake from Secret Recipe quite awhile ago, and she finally got her wish.

Happy Birthday Keira!

And I made pau! Following this recipe.

Our maid has been with us one week now, and I can feel the difference already.

We have been able to sit down together for dinner every night and eat peacefully, while Sean gets what he wants: someone to carry him around.

I am beginning to realise I don’t have to cook one pot meals anymore, and can basically make anything I want, as there will be someone there to either help me with the chopping and cleaning or carrying the baby.

As a result we have been eating in alot more, and eating nicer food

And the most significant difference is that we are spending more quality time with the kids.

Where one week ago, we might have been trying to wash dishes and clean up after dinner, and have to tell Keira: “Wait, wait, we can’t play with you yet.” Now, we can all sit down together and enjoy some family time. It’s wonderful!

Of course it’s not all perfect. The problem is mainly to do with me. I am too nice, and don’t like to tell people to do things. I am automatically friendly to everybody.

So now am having trouble telling the maid what to do and what not to do. Eg. Don’t carry Sean the moment he makes noise because he needs to learn some independence, and I don’t want him to get too attached to her.

Is this something I should control or it can’t be helped because she will be a big presence in Sean’s life for a couple of years? Any Mums with maid experience out there have any advice?

I suppose I feel possessive of my kids and don’t want her to be another “mother”… is that possible?

Had time to make cupcakes with Keira today (while the maid carried Sean and let him watch us). We had a good time together, no stress, no rush. So overall, having the maid is still is a good thing. I think.

Keira’s birthday is coming up this Sunday, and I was thinking of using these cupcakes as the start of her birthday celebration. But they turned out quite ugly, as you can see in the pic above, so have scrapped that idea.

We’re not doing a party for her this year, as Keira has developed a bad case of stranger anxiety (gets very scared when people come to our house). All she wants for her birthday is familiar faces. So it’s just us, ah gong, ah ma and granduncle.

We’re going to a Japanese buffet to celebrate tho. That’s to satisfy my craving for sashimi. hehe. And also Keira loves to choose from the colourful array of cakes, jellies, ice creams and fruits on the dessert table. yumm.

Our girl is three years old now! Wow!

She came in, unpacked and immediately started tidying and cleaning up the house without me asking! Her English is pretty good too. She understands everything we say and can answer our questions.

She knows what to do around the house and I’ve also let her carry Sean, and she seemed quite confident with him as well.

So far so good. Now if she can continue like this for the rest of the contract, then we’re in luck!

On to Keira @ Kindy. This is her third week there. Last week was quite bad cos she woke up crying everyday, she was so scared.

This week, she still cries, but it is getting less and less. Today she managed to hold the waterworks in all morning, all the way in the car and only burst into tears when we stepped into the kindergarten door.

The teacher says she stops after I leave tho, and is quite OK after that. Altho she is still timid about joining in with the other children.

And when I come to pick her up, she is happy and cheerful. So when she says “Mummy, I don’t want to go to kindergarten… pwease mummy, I don’t want to go to kindergarten…” Do I believe that she really doesn’t like it?

The happy thing about kindy is that after observing her, the senior teacher told us that Keira is a very capable girl, and speaks very well (but speaks so fast they can’t catch what she says!) And she is mature enough to follow the older kids’ classes.

It’s nice to get validation of what we already knew about this special little girl of ours

Besides the sound of gentle waves lapping against the sand of an island resort, this is the second best sound to wake up to every morning:)

Check out our little chubby bubby There’s nothing like sleeping naked in just your nappy on a hot, sunny afternoon eh? I love the way his legs are still scrunched up plumply against his body… aah, I can’t believe there was a time when I totally disliked babies. How could I? They’re so cute!

Sean had his second set of immunisation shots today and also general check up with doctor. At almost 4 months, He is now 63cm long and weighs 6.7kg. Both coming in at the 50th percentile on the growth chart, right in the middle.

He seems to be settling into some kind of sleep routine, but it’s not really set in stone yet. He takes about four naps in the day. A one hour morning nap around 10.30am. A 40 minute lunch time nap around 1pm. A one/two hour afternoon nap around 2.30pm, and a 40 minute evening nap around 6pm.

He then sleeps from about 9.30pm to 8.30am, waking up every three hours or so for milk… Seems like alot of sleeping?

Sean is quite an angel in the mornings. He is in such a good mood, and is happy just lying in his bouncer, kicking his feet and looking at things. That’s when we get dimpled smiles, chuckles and laugh out louds. Baby smiles are so addictive, I can’t get enough of them!

He transforms into a monster in the afternoons. Screams his head off if he is not being carried. My arms and back are damn sore man. And my throat is quite hoarse, as have been singing songs to him so I don’t have to carry him.

In the evenings and night, he is OK. Sometimes good and sometimes cranky. Depends on how tired he is I think. He loves having his bath just before bedtime. Must be such a wonderful feeling to float around in the warm water because the moment he comes out, he bursts into tears!

What else can I say about Sean? He is a cutie pie lah! I know I’m biased, but if this is my last baby, I gotta enjoy every cuddly moment:)

This is the second week of kindy. in the first week, i stayed with her everyday to get her used to the place, she was abit clingy but pretty happy.

This week, we started to leave her there after trying to get her settled in. But the moment i start to go… waterworks.

And today, she cried all the way there in the car saying: ‘’Mummy please don’t leave me, mummy please don’t leave me..'’

Each time she says that I am sooo tempted to stay with her. but then i see that when i’m there she sticks close to me and always looks to me for guidance instead of the teachers. so if i really want her to settle, i should leave.

The teachers also tell me to go and that it is normal, and she will get used to it after awhile.

I hope so! But knowing Keira, who is a stubborn girl and who has her own mind, I’m not sure if she will ever decide that she is OK with kindy.  I don’t want her to be scared like this everyday… sigh

Maybe she’s still too young?

Hmm, I foresee that in the near future I might have some free time away from these two cute little monkeys. Actual chunks of time when I can go out and do things… like get a haircut… am in urgent need of a haircut.

Keira is going to start kindergarten on Monday! we finally found a little Montessori kindy near our place that suits us, informal and flexible, with very nice teachers. Took Keira in for an hour yesterday and we could see she was fascinated with what the kids were doing. She said she wanted to go back there again!

So now the next hurdle towards freedom is to be able leave her there on her own. We’ve discussed with the teacher and have agreed to settle her in slowly. So I’ll be there with her for a few days first to get her used to the place, and then after that, for four hours a day, everyday, I’ll be FREE!

Wait a minute, I forgot about Sean, the every two hour breast feeding milk monster. Sigh! But this brings me to the next topic. We will also have a maid arriving in a few weeks.

She is a Cambodian with a little work experience, so can speak abit of English.

This will be the first time I have a stranger living in the house with me who is there to help me do things. I hope she will be worth the trouble.

I have heard so many bad stories of maids stealing, being moody, lazy, disobedient, running away, unhygienic, demanding… I just hope this one we’re getting will be a good one.

Now I have to figure out what I want the maid to help me with, how to accomodate an extra person in the house for two years and how to behave towards her?

I also don’t know if I can trust her with the kids, so I think she will only be doing housework first, until I teach her the ins and outs of the kids’ routines.

After all that, then, just maybe, I will have time to do some non-kid or house related work. And with the extra pair of hands I can take Keira and Sean out anytime without having to wait for the weekends for CY to be free.

The kids are doing well tho. We’re coping. So then why do we need a maid? I suppose because with a maid we can do better than just cope. I’m sure I will scold and scream alot less and the kids will cry less, if I’m not frazzled trying to cook, carry Sean and comfort Keira all at the same time.

Fingers crossed, hope it works out.

BTW, Sean just gave me a huge baby laugh out loud moment when I was bouncing him on my lap. So Cute!

He can also raise his head up 90 degrees when on his tummy and turn left and right non-stop trying to see what’s going on around him. The boy is growing and growing:)

Liem is also from Australia, which means this is the first time they’ve actually played together properly, which is sad. Why are all of Keira (and Sean’s) cousins in Australia?

Sigh. But we’ve made the most of the time that they are here, and the kids have been having a fantastic time going places and doing things together!

We started with CY’s birthday:

Then lot’s of playing at home, at restaurants and playgrounds. They hardly stayed still, meaning most of the photos I took had one cousin or the other, or BOTH, all blurry because they’re jumping or waving or wriggling around. Like this!

Sean also scored himself some cousin time:)

One night we went out for some chinese fine dining at Gu Yue Tian. Lovely food presentation. Lovely food!

Here’s the starter, from left to right, mango roll with fried fu chuk, giant clams with watermelon, and chicken in rice paper roll.

We also had this pork spare rib with mushroom sauce, cooked to tender perfection.

And managed to capture a lovely shot of the kids posing with Ah Gong:)

Then Sean got upset, so the cousins tried to cheer him up. hehe.

Yesterday was Liem’s birthday party and we had another celebratory get together.

SIgh. Only a few more dinners before Liem goes back… then Keira will lose a cousin again. Gosh, I wish we had a bigger family and everyone stayed together in one place. I can see how happy Keira is when she is with family, and I wish she could have it all the time…

Family reunions always start off so wonderfully, but why do they have to end?

Doesn’t he have the cutest smile?

Sean is almost three months old now. It’s the golden age of babyhood, when they are at their most irresistably cute and cuddly

Here’s some of the things I have been enjoying most with this little baby boy:

- His smile! The fastest way to make that cheeky grin appear is to make funny faces and funny noises at him. He thinks it is hilarious. Sometimes he tries to copy us too!

- His “ah goos” and other attempts at conversation. I love to hear his cute baby gurgle.

- His chubby little legs kicking and kicking oh so energetically:)

- Stroking his soft, soft hair.

- Watching him sleep.

His sleep is getting slightly longer at night, averaging a wake up every three hours. And he is trying to establish a day time sleep routine. Unfortunately, he has a very noisy sister, who will shout and wake him up all the time, so he doesn’t have very long naps in the day. I think I’ll have to re-arrange his sleeping location once his routine firms up.

I’m still 100% breastfeeding him, but I don’t think I can last one year like I did with Keira. The weather is so hot and we go out alot more here, I’m finding it very uncomfortable to breast feed. So targetting six months to stop.

Afternoon is the worst time for me. Sean gets very cranky and will scream and scream until he is carried, Keira is her usual self (need I say more?), add in the heat factor, and yeah, in the afternoons, I keep on looking at the clock to see when it’ll be over.

Other than that, Sean is a lovely little bundle who is already so curious at what his jie jie is doing, I’m afraid he will grow up way too fast, and the next time I turn around, he’ll be crawling around after her!

At this rate, I’m going to have to have another baby just for me to cuddle again! No, no, I don’t mean it It’s way too tiring to have another one!

What can I say? When she’s happy, she is so happy. She screams and she giggles. she gives you big cheesy grins, and she lights up our lives.

But when she’s upset, she becomes inconsolable.

Unfortunately, Keira gets scared quite easily. She’s scared of thunder, of strangers, of new situations, new places. And when she’s scared she cries and cries, and nothing we do can make her stop.

I’m quite worried about this because we want to send her to kindergarten soon. But how when she bursts into tears the moment we step into a new place and then clings onto me like a limpet?

It’s not like I’ve locked her in the house all her life and she is a frog in a well. Ever since she was 6 months old, I took her to Gymboree, Caterpillar music and playgroups… Each time she cries and it takes her months to get used to the class.

We bring her out all the time and she meets all kinds of friends and relatives. But she continues to be shy and timid. She is queen in the house but a mouse outside.

Actually I know why she is like that. Because I was the same when I was young! So it’s my own fault isn’t it? I don’t know how I grew out of it, I think I just had to grow up. So maybe I have to wait for Keira to grow up too? what else can I do?

Hai…

In other developmental news:

Toilet Training
I have been toilet training Keira, and after the initial hurdle… that is get her used to doing it on the toilet, it is going well. Keira cried at first sitting on the toilet, until she discovered she could do it, and then she was quite proud that she could. Soon we won’t need to buy two sets of nappies anymore!

Counting
She is learning to count. But like me her math isn’t that good (Hmm.. did she inherit all my bad traits??!) she can count up to five things quite well, but gets abit confused with more than five, because she tends to repeat her counts, which  means she hasn’t quite grasped the concept yet.

Drawing
She drew her first coherent picture the other day. She drew a circle, two eyes, a mouth, legs, hands and hair! And the figure looked like Mr. Potato! I was so proud.

Going Green
She loves colours. Her favourite colour is green. (Hey, my favourite colour is green too!) In fact, Keira is obsessed with the colour green. Everything we buy for her must be green. Drinks must be green, jelly must be green, toys must be green, plate, spoon, cup… even our dishwashing liquid…all green!

Storytelling
I tell her bedtime stories everynight, and now she can tell stories too. Last night she started a story which went something like this: “Once upon a time, there was a little fish that lived in the sea. One day, a monster came and the fish ran away. But the monster was a moon monster and he said hello little fish, I’m the moon monster, I want to be your friend!“

She likes stories, just like me!

So, even if my daughter doesn’t look like me on the outside, maybe, just maybe, on the inside she is alot like me