All About Princess Kay

Question & Answer

2011-07-15T01:01:00.007-04:00

Gotta love the 4 year old toddler and all their questions. I will start this post and come back to it every time I come across something that Kay said that is cute, funny, heart-warming or frustrating. We are really enjoying this summer together so far, so there will be lots of conversations to document here. The busy Strawberry Festival weekend just passed with lotsa fun with friends in the neighbourhood, sun, horse-riding and splashing in the pool.

"Why is our nose between our eyes ?"
Hmmm...i told her that she wouldn't want it on her back as she would smell her poo every time she went to the toilet. Granny Lyn said: "So we can see it better ... one eye for each side of it :-)"

"Mum, I love you so much i don't know what to say". The version earlier yesterday was
"Mum, I love you so much but I don't know why..." ....Just melts your heart.

Me:"Kay, why are you taking so long in the toilet?"
Kay: "Cos' I have a lot of poo !"

Kay just wet the sofa after her nap, got scolded by me.
"Sorry i peed on the couch, accidents happen".

"Why do men pee from their belly buttons?"

"argh hahaha ... " Kay at 4, has the loudest fake laugh ever !

"Find me, mum!" ... constantly playing hide and seek (at least 20 times a day)

"Let me tell you my plan today" ... one of her usual lines when she wakes up in the morning.
Her plan usual starts with waking up, brushing teething, washing her face, going to pee, change her clothes, have breakfast, then go to her nanny's place. But it takes her 10 mins to tell me her plan before we can start doing anything.

"Where are we going?" ... if I make a turn that is not in the usual route, she needs to know where we are going.

"Mum I don't want you to grow old" ... when she sees an old lady on the streets.

3 and a bit

2010-09-01T00:44:00.009-04:00

The gap between blogs seem to be widening as there are more things happening in our lives. Between March and now (which is September), we were busy with endless things : Search for a site for the cafe; bought a property for cafe; Looking for contractors; Branding and Renovations for Red Bulb; Kay's dance recital in May; Michelle & Andy's Wedding; Sharon (a dear friend from singapore) visiting Toronto; Opening of Red Bulb; Muun Design Studio winning an award; Took a trip to Ottawa/Niagara/St. Jacobs; Dealing with extremely hot weather; Vince & Penny (from Hong Kong) Visiting Toronto; More hot weather and playing in the splash pads ...

We are glad that Kay has been a part of every one of these events in some way or another and it has a great journey so far. No doubt there were lots of sleepless nights, heated arguments and headaches along the way, we have managed to come through it all unscathed (so far). Kay has been the shining light at the end of the day. Yes, she wears mummy out excessively, but everything would be fine after a hug and a kiss. It's been such joy seeing her grow into this little person. Very opinionated, extremely sharp, smart, sensible, sensitive, vocal and funny. She would break into a dance while playing "tea party" or start humming a Hedley "Perfect" tune on the radio while knowing all the words in the lyrics.

Recently, she has been into a somewhat disturbing topic of "death". She keeps talking about things dying, not fully understanding the concept. It's a tough one to explain to a 3 year old for sure. We also want to teach her about compassion and not killing bugs and ants when she sees them. So I've been telling her how bugs also have families and how little bugs have mummies and daddies just like her. Then trying to explain why we are killing flies in the cafe. There probably isn't a good enough reason ever to be taking away the life of a living thing as we are taught in Buddha's teachings. So we have tried to close the windows at the cafe whenever we can to prevent them from coming in.

I should probably be blogging more to talk about her little peeves and such as they happen, but right now I just want to be completely absorbed in the moments before she grows up too quickly and begins kindergarten next September. Here are some snapshots from the past few months.

Strike a Pose ...birthday continues.

2010-03-23T01:03:00.007-04:00

A week ago ... we are going back and forth with the timeline a little.
Kay and her friends waiting for the Pinkalicious Play to begin. It was a LONG 40 minute wait before it started. But glad they enjoyed it. Kay and Caitlin were the only 2 that sat on the rug by themselves through the whole play. Then we enjoyed some $2 pink mini cupcakes after the show. Weather outside was wet, but at least we had some fun inside :)

Fast forward to this week, yesterday...
The birthday continues as Uncle Mike and Art visits Kay. More smiley cupcakes. As you can tell mummy is not very creative with the cupcake decorating. Actually i'm just testing out all the nibs I have in the piping kit I just got at the recent Food show.

The rest of the photos ... is just Kay POSING .... She Loves to pose for the camera. Wonder where she got that from :P

Kay is three !

2010-03-19T21:24:00.006-04:00

Our little baby turns three yesterday. It was just me and my princess with some cupcakes and candles during lunch today. No big bang birthday party or cakes yet, she has been down with a cold and fever for the past 5 days. Today is Day-6 of mummy staying at home with her. No nanny, no work meetings no phone calls, just me and a sick toddler. But the weather has been so nice that we actually managed to get some fresh air, in between the periods of her medicine kicking in and when she is feeling more energetic. Kay rode her Tricycle all by herself for the first time. Peddled and steered (with some success) with no help. This will be the beginning of many firsts in learning for our 3 year old. And we took a walk in our backyard today, played around on the swing and slide and checked out the damage that winter did to our vegetable patch. The alpine strawberry plants are actually growing already, and tulips are poking up from the ground. Spring is indeed here. Even the cats miss the sunshine. We let Te-a our cat out into the patio for a little while and she was just sprawling around.

Happy birthday Kay... hope you get well soon.

Do you speak Chinese ?

2010-02-05T00:27:00.006-05:00

Here is a funny story. A girl at Toy r us asked Kay, while we were shopping that day, if she spoke Chinese. And being our confident little toddler, she put her hands on her hips and nodded 'yes'. So the girl asked if she knew how to say 'pink' in Chinese...and there was silence. She just stood there, not knowing what to say. Poor Kay....

This is the extent of her learning Chinese so far. It's all our fault for not implementing it consistently. It's hard when we don't speak it at home to each other. And we also want her to know Cantonese and later French or Spanish and maybe Japanese ... so it's going to be a huge learning curve. Try harder mummy and daddy !

Rachel's birthday

2010-02-02T00:50:00.005-05:00

With the new year beginning, we are going to be attending more birthday parties. And the year always starts with Rachel's birthday in january. We had a lot of fun at the Woodbine fantasy fair last week. In fact, so much fun that Kay didn't wind down at all ...until 1.40am. She was a little over-stimulated by the plane-rides, merry-go-round, carasole, train rides and excitement at 7pm at night. But all's good after one episode of Caillou on the PVR.

I think the best thing about this age is seeing them interact with friends, discovering the world and learning languages, sounds, sights and smells. Textures of playdoh, licking chocolate from the fingers, decorating cupcakes are all favourite activities.

Adventures in learning

2010-01-07T21:19:00.010-05:00

Singing a chinese song, switching from Pink to Green, writing her letters A to H ... Kay is discovering a new world in languages and loving music & dance. She even made up her own rhythm when there isn't a song ... da da che, da da che, da da che, da da che, da da che.

Visit from Popo & Gong Gong

2009-11-25T01:19:00.004-05:00

Don't even know where to begin now. We have seen and done so much, Kay has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of speech and maturity of character. And seeing her with her grandparents is simply a joy. There is nothing that can replace the kind of love that grandparents can give. It's unassuming & without boundaries. Popo and Gonggong have spoiled her rotten.

She has even picked up some "Singlish" phrases from them along the way. Everything begins with "got" as opposed to "have". It's cute. We are quite sure she will correct it soon enough but it's just amazing how quickly they pick up words and expressions from us. Spelling her name, talking about coffee and making lattes, saying her numbers is mandarin, english and spanish (thanks to Dora), are just some of the many skills she has mastered in the past 2 months. Popo has also taught her to say "tears","snort" and "saliva" in Cantonese. Very useful words for her to get around life with :). And she has learned a little astrology about the Animal Signs of the Year we were born. She knows that she is born in the Year of the Pig, Mum is a Cow, daddy & Popo are Rats and Gonggong is a "Woof-woof" Dog. Fantastic memory this girl has. Now I can safely ask her where things are and she is right 90% of the time. The other 10% she is probably goofing around and trying to be funny.

Wish we were closer to New Zealand, but I guess we'll be back to communicating via Skype. There'll be no more late night dates for daddy and mummy for a long while. Today, is Popo's last night in Toronto. Gonggong has left a month earlier. It'll be buckets of tears again at the airport tomorrow. But that's just the sweet bitterness of life. For Kay, it will be back to Aunty Dorin's house on Thursday and we will be back to working late nights (not that this has stopped).

Here are some of the joyful moments spent with Popo and GongGong in Toronto. And wishing Popo a safe trip back to NZ. As Kay tells me when she is about to get a time-out, " I'll be nice, mummy. I'll be nice." We'll all try to be nice until we see Popo and Gonggong again.

Mum ... it's OK.

2009-07-18T22:37:00.004-04:00

It's time to officially announce that we are potty trained. I think it has been 2 weeks of clean diapers in the house. We are still working on the nap time pees but that is negligible. Really proud of Kay for just "getting it" so quickly. Eveything happened within 4 days... in the weekend. No diapers, lots of laundry for one day and we're done. I must say she is a pretty smart kid....very in tune with her body and is starting to be able to control it.

Just before bedtime today, she showed us that she knows how to control my computer the mouse and "click" on the play button to make the video re-play again. I mean ...she is two and I didn't even tell her where the play button is. She just figured it out by watching me do it.

And when your toddler tries to calm you down ... you know she is growing up. Mummy (me truly) has been rather short tempered recently, finding myself yelling or getting mad because she simply doesn't listen. But Kay would turn around, give me a hug and say "it's ok mummy, Kay Kay is here....its' ok mummy". How can anyone be angry after that? And recently, she has been calling me "mum" .... sounded like some teenager !

ABC's and the Cat in the Hat

2009-07-03T00:15:00.004-04:00

Alpine strawberries from our backyard... pretty yucky, but Kay likes to eat them off the bush.

Hanging out with the cat Te-a

daddy's little girl

Her little friend Gabe.
___________
April rains, May showers and June storms have come and gone. I can't believe the last blog was during Easter. So much has changed with our dear Kay. She has learned so much in the past couple of months, it'll be a shame if we didn't document it in some way.

Let's start backwards since we are now into July already.
Canada day (July 1st) was not much of an event for us cos' mummy dear (me) was so tired and a little sick from all the working late nights for the past week. But anyhow we managed to squeeze in some time at Lionel's Farm in the morning with Kay's little friend Gabriel. Haven't seen him for over a year now. I think we caught a glimpse of them striking a conversation at some point while feeding the animals. The last time they met they were both babies and Kay still had her funky hair-do.

As toddlers in their terrible 2s, there is a lot of fun and lots more work too. Learning her ABCs everyday, she knows all the Alphabets now and associates them with the words that begin with them. So she would read the words on the magazine or newspapers like this : "LIFE" would be "Lion, Iguana, Flamingo, Elephant". Pretty cool huh ! Plus she knows all her animals as well.
Wonder where she gets her genius from. And I guess I have to tell this story over again, though many friends have heard it. We stopped at a STOP sign one day and Kay said." Mommy look ! Octagon." I was impressed at how quickly she learned her shapes and her colours as well. All within 2 months ... And we have to thank Auntie Thubee for the awesome Birthday gift called "Teach MY Toddler" ...a system of learning tools developed by a mother. It really helped speed up the learning process cos' she was really interested in the flashcards and foam puzzles. I guess making learning part of playing does help a lot. So at 2 years 3 months, she knows her alphabets, shapes, colours ....and we are still working on the numbers. We have moved the number puzzle to the bathroom so she can play with the numbers while bathing. I guess Math will be a challenge in the coming years.

On the potty training front, we have achieved a lot in the past week. I'm seeing a full-filled potty chart in one week. We have no more space for stickers...may have to start a new chart soon. I should say Kay is now potty trained at 2 years and 3 months. We only went through 3-4 diapers in 4 days. Pretty good progress. Dora and boots are the still the favourite stickers to go on the chart.

Story books are her favourite sit-down activity, besides the TV of course. Dr Seuss's series of ABC books, Go Dog Go and the Cat in the Hat are her favs now. And we also have Olivia, Timmy is a big boy and Ladybug Girl. Not forgetting the Dora, Little Mermaid and The Incredible stories. We are watching Ice Age I & II, and Madagascar and playing the ABC game on the computer.

She is forming sentences that comprise of more than ten words in a string ...sometimes more. Most of the time only making sense to herself. But of course, mummy can translate them easily. Naps are a scarce commodity these days. Once a day, lasting for an hour or less. But according to Auntie Dorin (her babysitter) she still naps her 2 hours everyday.

We are thinking of moving her to her big girl bed by end of the year. It will be a tough transition cos' we are all so comfortable with her sleeping next to us now.

Snippets ... from here and there

2009-04-26T23:14:00.006-04:00

It's coming, Spring/ Summer, we think so. One day it's 27 degrees and the next day it's freezing cold. What's with this weather ? Well, Kay got to wear her shorts and tee 2 days ago...then today she's back in 3 layers. Easter went by fast, with too much chocolate and Easter baskets appearing at our door. It's great to have friends living close by.

We miss having Mike and Art around the corner. Their Sunday night soup kitchen was in their new apartment downtown and turned out to be a huge meal. Kay fell asleep in the car on the way home...

Kay is remembering her colours (most of the colours are blue), 1 to 5 and ABCDE's pretty well. She just learned how to say sching, cheeyuen and Judy (popo's name). It's kinda weird hearing her call our names instead of mommy or daddy. She is growing smarter everyday. More negotiations for Dora and Diego on TV ...and ice-cream on the cone. Loves her chocolate chip cookies, macaroni chicken soup and rice. Loves playing in her tent and giving Te-a and Milo hugs. She has been assigned the task of filling the cat's bowl with food, and just poked her finger into a fur-ball puke this morning ...eeewwww !

Report on our Toddler ... Year 2 check-up

2009-03-29T00:00:00.003-04:00

I guess I should have blogged on her actual Birthday ... but it just went by so quickly.
Just an update on the Chuck-E-Cheese party on the 21st. The 4 birthday stars in order of age :
Niall, Paige, Kay and Mina had a blast with Chuck-E ! They had ice-cream cake, kiddie rides, tossed basketballs, drove race-cars, had Chuck-E sing their birthday song, and went home with so many gifts ! They are spoilt for sure ..but lucky to have great friends...mommies and daddies included. After the party we were watching the video from the party over and over for maybe the 50th time today.

We went for her milestone 2-year check-up at the doctors. 29 lbs (13.5kg) and 84 cm tall is the latest record. Realized that we haven't been keeping track of these statistics for sometime now.

Here are some of her 2 year "achievements":
Kay's latest dig is playing the Dora video that Auntie Thubee got her, reading her book about Dogs, playing with the pots and pans in HER kitchen, chopping HER toy veges and fruits and serving mommy and daddy plastic Sushi. She is saying her numbers 1 to 5 pretty well now and hums the "twinkle twinkle little star" while she is "cooking". She is into wearing Jeans because she sees mommy putting them on everyday. She picks out her own socks and shoes everyday. She's hates wearing her hair up in a pony tail or any hairclips. She can put on her pants (sometimes), and has poo pooed in her potty 3 times ! She can spot airplanes in the sky, and imitates birds singing on the trees. She loves the slide and is quite a dare-devil at it. She is following instructions pretty well most of the time when she wants to. She loves carrying her baby and blanket everywhere she goes ... and i mean EVERYWHERE ! What will we do without them.

Thanks to everyone for the great and thoughtful gifts. I'm leaving some in the basement to be opened on rainy days...and when i need to switch the toys around.
Photos from the party are all on Kay's photo site.

We're TWO !

2009-03-16T01:16:00.006-04:00

Yeah ... the big TWO !
We just had dinner with close friends and kept the party small this year ... only with Richard as the other toddler. Figured that it would be easier to handle than 5 or 6 like last year. Thanks guys for all the gifts. Kay is spoilt by all the people she loves ... Mike , Art, Thubee and Julien went crazy with the books this year. And thanks to Aunty Lydia and Uncle David for the dress and plush toys ... We could probably built a Dr. Seuss collection by the time she turns 3. Kay is really into Dogs and Dora at this point so the 2 immediate favourites are the ones that Aunty Thubee got her....thanks to mommy for the hints. Kay was so tired from running around with Little Richard and playing with Julien, that bed time was a snap.

This year, we did chinese food. But I think I'll opt for an easier, less greasy and less time-consuming option next time. Spend almost the whole day in the kitchen, even though i do enjoy cooking and baking. Thanks to Cheeyuen for cleaning up the mess... I just had to put Kay to bed and all the dishes were done !

Anyway, just an update on the potty front...we had 2 successful poo poos and 1 pee pee since the last report. I guess turning 2 was indeed a huge milestone.

More photos are now being uploaded onto our Picasa site.

Finally ... victory at the potty.

2009-03-09T22:54:00.004-04:00

March 9th, 10pm ... Kay made her first poo poo in the potty !
She felt it coming and she asked to go to the potty... it was a success. We said our farewell and flushed it down the toilet. Never have we felt so excited for something so nasty.
We'll report more updates on this issue soon.

chi-mish ...and other words

2009-03-03T16:43:00.007-05:00

Funny funny words are now spoken by our little Kay.
Here's a glossary / translation:

1) Chi-mish = Finish
2) cho-church = chocolate
3) Muffin = Play the Muffin Man song (again ... and again ...we've heard it maybe over 100 times)
4) Try = Can I try whatever you have on your plate or that yummy can of pop?
5) Ants Come Up !! = Ants are coming in through our bathroom window ...and she is terrified.

Before haircut

After Hair-cut

We gave her a second hair-cut (trim to the fringe). Didn't take it too well, after finding all the hair falling onto her t-shirt. She is such a clean-freak...keeps pointing out "Dirty" on the floors. Yes, mommy is not cleaning enough.

And we finally sold her Bumbo Seat on Craigslist...this shows her sitting on it for the last time.
Her birthday is coming up in a few weeks...2 years old !

I'm glad my business website is up and running. Except that the web-developer is taking forever to import the blog over to the website. It's been a month and she still cannot come up with a solution. Sigh...it's frustrating.

Happy birthday grandpa !

2009-02-21T09:20:00.001-05:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Warming up ... on V-day.

2009-02-16T08:13:00.006-05:00

The weather is finally warming up. And we are all feeling better, thanks to everyone for their concern and advice. Hopefully that will be the end of it for this season...we all know how winter tends to drag on til March or April here.

Our little Kay has grown so much, she's hardly little any more. Holding her, laughing together, smelling her hair, playing tickle, giving hugs, high-fives and kisses ... makes me want Kay to stay little. But that is not going to happen i guess. She is quite a TV addict now, mostly my fault and I'm not particularly proud of myself. But she is also learning lots from the tele...and she is very focused when she is watching...so that helps with concentration ? Can't be all that bad, right? Anyway, it was nice that she made her first Valentine's Day card for us. Her babysitter aunty Dorin, make the kids do little heart shaped cards with their hand-prints on it. Very sweet.

Happy V-day for mama and dada indeed.

flu season number 3

2009-02-05T08:06:00.006-05:00

It's increasingly hard to keep this blog updated. Doesn't help that my head feels like it's weighed down onto the floor. It's been almost a week now, and I'm still feeling terrible from the sinus cold and cough. I think I have just witnessed the inevitable that just happened... 3 coughs from Kay. She might have caught it...and that is just not good. We just keep passing it back and forth ...wonder when it's going to end. Really looking forward to some warmer weather now.

Chinese New Year went in a flash. Dinner with friends and lots of food. Then Superbowl sunday last week...again lots of food. That's when I start having the cold.

Anyway, Kay has been a great help nowadays, or at least she tries to be. She is eager to run an errand or pick stuff up from the floor and throw it into the garbage or point out to me where it's dirty .... yes, the house isn't spic and span ... and my baby is telling me to clean up.

Cheeyuen met up with his cousin Lawrence here last week ... one of the first few family visiting us. He is here on an exchange program in the university of Waterloo. Hopefully we'll see him again before he leaves.

Happy Holidays from the Lims

2009-01-06T23:57:00.005-05:00

Wishing all a happy new year...

It's been nice having friends over for the holidays but also makes us miss our families more.

Kay has suddenly grown into a little lady. I think it's mainly her hair that's changed her image drastically. It frames her face nicely now and she looks more like a girl. So I took this opportunity to put her in dresses....and I must say she looks pretty cute.

Expressing her independence and her views quite a lot ...our little Kay is a pretty bossy little toddler. Her favourite thing to do is to ask people to "sit" on her little red chairs when they come over to our place. Uncle Paul was one of the 'victims'. That day she took my breath away when she said "bless you" when I sneezed. She is 'taking care' of her mommy now...how nice. After the holidays, she also learned a new word : "chocolate".

Here are some snapshots of friends who made our holiday special.

First Hair cut

2008-11-05T16:03:00.007-05:00

Ha ha ...we finally did it. I took a pair of craft scissors and chopped off her fringe, while cheeyuen sat her down in the bathtub. It is a little too short ... but not bad for a first attempt. Sorry babe, there will be a lot of experimentation on your hair from today onwards. I will always remember the time my mum (your popo) gave me a full perm ... now i'm glad i don't have any photos of that episode.

Cough and cold season ...also known as Fall

2008-10-17T00:53:00.003-04:00

Fall is my favourite season...the colours, the air and the rustling of falling leaves. Too bad for Kay and I have been down with the cold as well. She is already much better but I still have a hacking lingering cough...used a puffer for the first time in my life.

Anyway, we still got through Thanksgiving weekend having fun at the pumpkin patch and hit some balls at the driving range.

I have also updated Muun Design's blog with new projects and inspirations.
Click HERE.

Yeah ! Many first Words + Pee Pee !

2008-10-07T23:17:00.006-04:00

"Shoes, Ball, Fish, Cat, Dog, Bird, *snort*snort > for pig, *coccocco > for chicken, *moomoo > for cow, *roar ! > for lion or shark or tiger, *thish>for please, Open, Door, Oh-Oh !, Da-da, *ma ma > for milk, *arter > for water, Up, *un, two, three, for > counting, More, All Done, *Po po > for grandma, Hot" ... for anything that is remotely warm or even cold...is hot.

Kay's repertoire of words are growing and it's fun to watch. We were exclaiming why the English language is so complicated. Kay understands the concept of *Open*, so she uses it for everything from *opening the door *opening (flipping) the pages of a book *opening the box *opening (twisting) the lid of a bottle...

And even though both Kay and I are down with the Cough and Cold of the fall season, we are really really proud today. She did her first pee pee in the potty today (October 7th) since we bought the thing almost 2 months ago. We were just doing our normal bath routine of stripping down and she would normally go sit in the potty for (2 seconds) to "pretend" to pee pee (we call it "she she")....only that this time, she actually made a face and there was real pee in the pot ! I was so happy to see pee ! Never would I think of being happy about such things but here I am clapping and cheering at the yellow liquid.

But we are both down with a bad cold...sore throat, cough and all. So our Thanksgiving roadtrip to NYC to visit Joyce and Megan are cancelled. We will have to postpone it to another weekend for sure. Finally ordered a Dyson vacuum cleaner through Amazon and it's now sitting in Joyce's basement in NY.

Today's rant, TV and the night

2008-08-31T09:24:00.004-04:00

Last night's story is pretty much becoming a trend in this blog. I'm wondering if she will ever sleep in her own crib again. I don't think she has slept in it for more than 2 times this whole week. And when she did, she went down screaming and crying her lungs out. Maybe that's why she hates the place. But I do need a break sometimes. Kay decided to wake up at 1am ... crying. So we gave her some tylenol for teething pains and we stayed up watching TV and went to back to bed at 2am. Fun times.

Well people think 3 days at the baby sitter seems like a lot of time for me to find time for myself. But no one really understands. No one. The time it takes to set up your own business is 24-7. You'll be constantly thinking about ways to make things better, plus on-going projects, plus trying to get new clients travelling downtown, plus administration, plus running around to meet suppliers. I have to do all that in 3 days a week, plus taking care of Kay is also 24-7, her daily meals, clean-ups, playtime and bedtime takes up all the rest of my time. So sometimes I don't even have time for lunch. So tell me where i can find time to myself? Daddy does his starbucks routine in the weekends, all the home repairs, mows the lawn, does laundry and tries to find time to exercise in the weekends. So there i am, doing all the same stuff in the weekends as the weekdays, without a break for myself. Unless you consider taking a 20 minutes shower a huge break. My goal for next week is to sign up for a yoga class. That'll be at least an hour of "me" time.

my little helper

2008-08-30T23:25:00.004-04:00

Yes, this is true...she has started helping out around the house.
Hmmm, i'm wondering when i can say this with certainty.
But she is snatching the vacuum cleaner from me while I was 'trying' to clean the house.

Before bed time...

Her classic face followed by "shiver" when we pour water over her head !

Sleep ... or the lack of ?

2008-08-30T14:37:00.003-04:00

It's been 2 weeks in a row that Kay's been climbing in bed with us. She has been unable to go down in her own bed, which has recently been like a magnet she repels. Let's hope it's all part of the teething phase. Wish us luck.

But check out this new game that she has been playing with daddy before bedtime....it's pretty fun. Hhmmm now i'm thinking it's probably not the best game for winding down for bed ?

Swearing in as Canadians

2008-08-25T23:01:00.004-04:00

These are the scenes from the ceremony. Cheeyuen actually met a fellow co-worker there and out of the 52 people swearing in, they actually ended up sitting next to us. What are the odds? But it was all good. The judge was quite a "mascot" himself. There must have been people from 15-20 different countries becoming Canadians in that room, which is the amazing thing about this country.

the balloon !

2008-08-25T20:14:00.004-04:00

Summer fun, eating and video

2008-08-25T19:37:00.005-04:00

Maybe there is hope after all.
Kay actually finished every single pea on her plate tonight. For dinner, she had 1/4 soft spinach tortilla wrap, 1/2 cup of peas and corn, a spoonful of my Mee Goreng and a cup of apple juice !! That is such a great achievement. And she fed herself the whole time....I must say with the help of "Wonder Pets" and "in the night Garden" on TV. My girl is finally eating...maybe her teething woes going away soon.

Here are some videos and photos of our summer spent with friends.

That teething monster and O' Canada.

2008-08-25T09:06:00.003-04:00

My poor Kay is plagued by the teething monster. Two incisors, two upper molars and two lower molars breaking through at the same time is no fun for everyone. She hasn;t been herself. Cranking, not eating, not sleeping well and waking up screaming in blood-boiling pain. Thank goodness for pain killers. Her gums are all swollen, and we confirmed with the doctor that it wasn't anything else like ear infections. My mum didn't recall us going through this stage..hmmm... Yes, it sounds too much for a little body. She hasn't been able to go to sleep in her own crib at night anymore. I have to sit with her on the sofa in her room until she's down before putting her in her bed. And once she wakes up, she'll only go down in our bed. So what happened to training her to be independent since she was 4 months old?

By the way, Cheeyuen and I will officially become Canadians today. August 25th at 1.30pm, we are going for the swearing in ceremony in Oshawa. Apparently they'll make us sing O'Canada and take the oath in English and French. We'll post photos in the next update. This is kinda of a big milestone for us ... establishing our home permanently in canada.

For Kay, the big milestone is being able to tell us when she peed or pooed in her diaper. She'll point at it or squat down indicating she's done it. But so far, she hasn't done it in the potty.

Civic Holiday blues...

2008-08-04T16:57:00.004-04:00

What's all the hype about long weekends ? It's pretty much the same as any weekend, long or short. It kinda feels like that when Kay is not napping well or eating well. It's frustrating really. You can't get anything done but you still feel exhausted at the end of the day. I think it's probably the teething. Her incisors (or fang teeth) are cutting through the gums. The molars are also emerging. So the pain must be pretty unbearable ...plus the buckets of drool !

Well, we managed to go the petting zoo nearby and then the splash pad at the playground. All these in an attempt to tire Kay out so that she would take her nap. And it worked. She is now napping finally at 5pm in the evening...seems a bit screwed up cos' it almost close to dinner/ night time. But what are we gonna do ? Just go with the flow.

Summer time in the backyard

2008-08-03T11:41:00.004-04:00

I just realize it's almost impossible to keep this blog updated as often as i like. Now Kay is watching TV as i'm typing this. So i guess i have to choose between turning my baby into a couch potato (which she already is ... ) and keeping the blog updated.

It's fun times for us this summer with Kay being 17 months coming on 18. She is speaking her own language and communicating like a real adult. I guess photos will tell the story better than words.
All i wish now is for Kay to eat her meals properly.... she is not a big fan the food I make. Makes me feel so dejected every time. She doesn't even want to try it sometimes. Well, at least she ate half of the oatmeal-whole wheat-blueberry-pancakes that I make from scratch. I try my best....no packaged food, cooked fresh and organic if the price is not too much. But I'm not getting the response from her. All she wants to eat are biscuits, wheat puffs and rice cakes. So wish us luck with the eating.

Back to her old self

2008-06-19T07:53:00.001-04:00

This stomach flu thing has been transferred to poor daddy. Cheeyuen was in bed and the toilet for the past 2 days. What a terrible father's day gift. Kay is well for a week now...thank goodness. She is now bobbing her head to Elmo's CD of silly music. Granny Giggles Lynn got it customized with her name in the songs. It's pretty cool. And she is stuffing her face with Arrowroot cookies at the same time. Hmmm, what's there not to like about music and food. Together they are perfect way to start a day. We are having breakfast now. After this I get her ready to go to the baby sitter, or the back-up sitter (Dorin). She has really taken to Dorin very quickly. We still don't know when Auntie Oz is ready to take her back. Found out that she's having problems with moving into her new place.

My herb garden and strawberry patch are growing nicely.
Now we have a collection of organic Orange Thyme, Chocolate mint, rosemary, Siam Queen basil, Dark Opal Basil and Thyme. Thanks to this little organic garden I chanced upon downtown. Hopefully we'll have some strawberries to harvest in time for the Strawberry festival on July 1st weekend.

Poor baby with the runs.

2008-06-12T22:50:00.004-04:00

It's now Day 4 of changing poopy diapers and no appetite. Touch wood the vomiting seems to have subsided. Kay is down with stomach flu or so the doctor says. There is nothing they can do because it's viral. But come to think of it, there is nothing much the doctors do here except tell you that you have to wait it out. No medication and no relieve for my poor baby. It's hard to watch them go through so much pain. All that crying for an hour and half before bed was excrutiating to my ears. Sometime i wonder why anyone would bring a baby into this world of suffering. I would think there is more to having a baby then to propagate continuity of a species. But when I see them suffer like that I'd rather face extinction. Then again, when you see them smile and give you a hug and kiss, you wished there were more of them. Life is so full of ironies.

She looks fine in the photo but her tummy was actually rumbling inside. For the past 3 days we have been hibernating at home hoping not to spread it around. Playing in our backyard wasn't too bad either. We'd spend half an hour playing on the swing, doing the slide, walking around plucking the tall grasses that daddy missed while mowing, and just watching the birds catching worms in the neighbour's yard.

Wish my baby well.

Meeting up with friends and their kids in singapore

2008-06-07T23:25:00.003-04:00

This trip to Singapore seems to be quite different from the past. It seems to be "kids-centric", and revolved around meeting up with friends and their children. Feels like we have been pretty far behind some of our friends with 3 and 4 kids. But we really had no regrets waiting as we are at a far better location and mind-set now than we were 10 years ago. Yes, it's funny that we were amongst the first to get married but we have just started in our journey with Kay. So we do have a lot to learn from many of these 3-times parents. I often wonder how they do it with more than one. We are doing ok but would be struggling if we had another. Again it made us realize how important it is to have immediate family around when we have kids and being faraway in Canada didn't really make it easier. The culture in Singapore endorses and embraces the employment of a live-in helper, especially for families with kids. It seems like a norm and people squint when we tell them that we don't have a "maid" at home. That term seems to used less and less in the current context but that is essentially what they were treated as. For us, we never could get use to the idea of having a stranger live-in our house with us and taking care of our kids. So that's not an option. But it was nice catching up with everyone....and their little ones.

We went to the places like the Jacob Belles Children's garden at the Singapore Botanical Gardens, somewhere we would have never considered visiting if we didn't have a kid. It was nice even though it was extremely hot. It was the second generation of my architecture mates meeting up for the first time. There were 7 kids altogether that day, ranging from 6 months old to 6 years old, all playing bubbles and just running around, while the adults chomped down on local fare. It was a nice picnic. Thanks for organizing it, Gyn.

And here is the list of friends with 3 or more kids...just as a reminder to myself for future reference:
Karen & Steven Bay-with Benjamin(4), Bridgitte(3) and Ignitius (3 months)
Trish & Glen Lim - with Ethan (6), Elliot (5) and Trinity Ming (3)
KahHan & Winnie Liaw- with Timothy(7), Elizabeth(4) and Dominic (1.5)

Thanks everyone for sharing family moments with us.

Singapore and back....another 2 months has passed.

2008-06-05T08:44:00.005-04:00

Catching Up...
Nothing is stopping time I guess, Kay is now 14.5 months and I'm just lagging behind on all the blogging. So much has happened since Kay's birthday, we have gone to Singapore for 3.5 weeks, experienced extreme heat and humidity, met up with her grandparents for the first time, had her first hair-cut, got a great tan, came back to Toronto, suffered from jet lags and colds, terrible teething episodes, visited the Toronto Zoo for the first time.....and ooohhhh....that was just a short summary of those months passed. My weekly resolution for this week is to be more diligent with blog updates because we know a lot of family and friends are depending on it to get the latest news about us in faraway Canada. Sorry everyone, if you missed out on some of the great stories these past months. I will try to catch up and put them in as best as I can.

Ok, since my mommy brains do not have much of a short term/ mid-term memory, I'm just trying to recall the events after Kay's birthday. I guess we were just busy trying to get our work out of the way, so that we can prepare for the long trip to Singapore. Well at least I was. Then a whole week was spent packing the bags and buying gifts to bring back to family.

Packing for the long trip
Hhhmmm, what could we buy from Canada besides maple syrup, ice wine and Ontario Ginseng? Well, not much, so we went with the Uncle Bill's Ontario Ginseng for this trip, since we did Ice wine the last time and us Asians don't really know what to do with maple syrup. So we stocked up on everything from ginseng roots to teabags and ginseng candy for Cheeyuen's family. The largest Samsonite we have was packed with just gifts. Of course we went to the doctors to get advise on what to "medication" to take along for Kay's long flight. She was also having a cold when we left, so it brought on some worries about pressure on the plane causing ear-infections and so on. Remind me why i shouldn't be reading too much of these on the web. Well, the best they say was to feed the baby on take-off and landing, to prevent this problem. And so we did try that and loaded up on kids' Benadryl and Gravol. These were the hardest part of the packing. Kay had her own small Samsonite, full of skimpy summer clothes, baby formula and diapers. Cheeyuen and I just shared one luggage, with me taking up 90% of the space as usual. His policy is to buy when we get there. Ok, like I wasn't going to do any shopping.
Anyway, the biggest concern we had was what to bring on the plane so that Kay will get everything she needed for the day. So on our carry-on bag was a huge back-pack with 10 diapers, wipes, change of clothes for all of us, a Macbook loaded with DVDs of the Backyardigans and Wonder Pets, toys, toys and more toys. Another duffle bag was just filled with the days selection of fresh fruits, yogurt, cookies, nibbles, bread, formula, a thermos flask and 4 baby bottles filled with boiled water. Phew, it was a lot of stuff to take on the plane.
Anyway, the day came for us to make that long 24-hour flight.

In order to relate better to the incidents below, you can start browsing the above link to see the photos.

The flight...and sale of our iRobot "Buddy"
The night before we left, this guy on Craigslist decided that he wants to buy my Crazy iRobot Vacuum cleaner which we affectionately call "Buddy". So he haggled with me from $100 bucks to $50. Whatever, I was too busy worrying about my long flight to care about this guy. Anyway, he lives in Mississauga and wanted the vacuum cleaner right away so he wanted to pick it up from me at the airport. I can't believe i agreed to it. So amongst all the luggage and carry-ons, we brought along a box with Buddy in it. Our friend Mike gave us a lift to the airport, so at least there was an extra pair of hands and to help take Buddy home in case that crazy guy didn't turn up. So minutes before we got to the airport, this guy was messaging me on my cell, telling me to look out for his Yellow Hummer at the departure lanes. What a joke.!Why would someone driving such a big A** Hummer (in yellow, nonetheless) care about a crappy $50 vacuum cleaner. Anyway, it was done. Mike helped do the exchange while we were busy lining up to check-in and I never got to meet the guy in the Yellow Hummer.

Everything seemed to be going well, and like Mike said, if things fall into place at the beginning of a trip, it's a good sign that the rest of it will be fine. And he was kind of right about that.
So we boarded the plane and got into our seats. Kay was squirming and wanted to walk around.
But it was chaotic with people loading up luggages overhead so that wasn't good and we had some screaming. Anyway, while the plane was taxiing for take-off we decided to make her a bottle so that we can feed her on take-off. Problem is we made the bottle too full and it started leaking all over. And with the seat-belt signs on we thought getting an air-stewardess to help empty a little of the milk out of the bottle was a good idea. But who know, she actually emptied the entire bottle !! And there we thought the bottle will help soothe our struggling and screaming baby. Well, minutes before the final seat-belt warning came on, we scrambled to make a new bottle and things worked out.

Considering that it was Kay's first flight, I think she did pretty well. Albeit the struggling to get out of the seat-belt and screaming about not being allowed to walk around, she was a pretty good traveller. Air pressure didn't seem to bother her, but the fact that she can't move around as much did. So our advise is to travel with a baby who is not so mobile yet. It'll be easier.
Anyway, she slept for 5 of the 16 hours to Hong Kong, where we made our transit.

The two hours in Hong Kong was spent filling up our tummies with proper food and freshening up. Then it was another 4 SHORT hours to Singapore.
We arrived and survived !

The party...and first night at Clementi.
Finally landing in Singapore gave us a sense of relief and achievement. The welcomed excitement on Cheeyuen's mum's face and my brother Austin and his wife Tib, made the journey all worth it. You could see their elated expressions through the glass barrier as they waved frantically, while we waited collected our baggage on the belt.
It was a nice "welcome party" and we were quickly whisked into the car enroute to Cheeyuen's sister (Laihong's) place where we'll be spending the first week.

It was almost 11pm when we got to Clementi on the west-end of Singapore island. Of course the first question we were asked was "Are you hungry?". It was Singapore? Food paradise, you shouldn't expect anything less. Simon offered to go get some supper for us at the coffee shop downstairs. Hmmm...what did we have? With a sure answer from Cheeyuen, we had Braised Duck Rice, Grilled chicken wings and Western style Chicken Chops. A wierd choice since we just came from the Western lands. You can pretty much get great food at anytime of the day or night within a stone's throw. We really miss this aspect of convenience and accessibility to food since we moved to Toronto. Well it just got a little farther in Stouffville where we'll have to drive to get to anywhere with decent food. This and of course, we missed being close to family and friends even more.

There is also a need to clarify the difference in definition of "Supper" in Singapore. Unlike in Toronto where Supper equals Dinner, here Supper was the meal after dinner. Somewhat like a midnight "snack". So there is Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon tea, Dinner and Supper all laid out for our itinerary here. Or so we hoped.

The first night was pretty much rolling around the mattress in the dark, playing catch with Kay.
What do you expect? It was morning time in her body clock. She just wanted to play. So we did a few hours of "naps" like she did in her regular daytime schedule. Woke up at 7am in the morning and went down to the Hawker Centre for breakfast with Cherie (Kay's 12 year old cousin) and Laihong (Cheeyuen's sister). None of us could resist the idea of breakfast even though we were tired as hell and had no sleep. So off we went into the sweaty heat, the first of many such days for little Kay. She was one moody baby in the heat and humidity, we have all the photos to prove that.

Freedom and Saying "No"

2008-04-05T23:45:00.006-04:00

My little girl has gone pass the one year mark and in style I might say. She is walking around hands-free and mommy-free nowadays. So it makes her look so cute in little dresses that previously get dragged along the floor. Well, of course mommy cannot wait for her to wear all those dresses in summer and for our trip to Tropical singapore.

Asserting her feelings more and learning to say "No" while shaking her head was the latest of her many antics. She would pick out the omelette pieces i have mixed with toast on her tray, show it to me and shake her head to say she didn't like it. Talk about being specific. This girl sure knows what she likes and doesn't like. People say that is good because I know exactly what she likes, but I'm torn as I also want her to try everything so that she can have a wider range of food.

It is finally sinking in that she is really growing up ... FAST !

Happy first Birthday !

2008-03-20T23:14:00.002-04:00

March 18, 2008
A year flew pass and Kay just turned one 2 days ago. Was meaning to post something on the day of, but like the rest of the year past, it just slipped by. Many thoughts and many emotions running through my mummy brains right now....but rest assured, they are mostly good thoughts. Would like to thank all our family and surrogate families in Toronto, Singapore, NZ, Alberta and NYC for making this such a special occasion for us.

Well, like how they would do it at the Oscars, I would like to thank:
the group of stouffville mums & kiddos (Rossana/Niall, Eilla/Mina, Maria/Paige & Rita/Caitlin) for all the good times; Samantha & Rachel (her friend since I was pregnant together with her mum Sam); Lydia/David/Richard/lydia's mum (for the support and friendship); Art & Mike (for the many dinner parties and being great neighbours); Yolande/Jason (for helping me through some tougher days); Thuwaibah (for always being there ...somehow); Paul (for all the great advice and being a dependable friend); Elaine/Gab (for sharing Kay's first sushi & museum experince); Joyce/ChungWoh (our dear friends in NYC who are so gracious hosts and such great friends); Ivana/Dan/Neil (for shoveling our driveway and being fantastic neighbours); Granny Giggles/Lynn (for the spiritual and emotional support, advice and laughs online... and off); PoPo/Judy and GongGong/Henghuat for being there during the toughest months; MaMah/YeYe for being that loud voice on the other side of the phone sending their love; Cheeyuen's siblings Laihong/Lailing/CheeHwee for taking care of matters in Singapore and giving us peace of mind to start our lives here in Toronto....well the list goes on and is not in order of importance. Forgive me if I have missed anyone out but i'd like to thank everyone who crossed our paths and made a difference.

Kay's One ! ... as I've piped it on her birthday cake....a pretty ok first attempt i should say.
She has achieved so much in a year that it makes my own progress in life a little shabby in comparison. She is constantly learning with every step, every breath, every touch and every taste. I can see why some people make babies as a hobby :) it's pretty rewarding to say the least.

Well, thanks to everyone's contribution, Kay's Time Capsule is filling up nicely with notes, keepsakes, loud-singing cards, photos, a recipe book, CD, dried up umbilical cord!, size #1 diaper, poems, bracelet/necklace, mini scrapbook...and her first pair of shoes. It will be such a great memory for her when she turns 10 and for us when we turn 60.

Maybe it's appropriate to say Thanks and wish everyone a Happy Easter too ! Enjoy the long weekend and pray for Spring to come.

Walking for the first time

2008-03-08T16:49:00.005-05:00

It's exciting times. There is huge snow storm outside and Kay is turning one next week. There has just been too much snow this winter.

March 6th- Kay has started walking two days ago. She made her first steps before that, but this time she actually walked all the way from the sofa to the TV, while chewing on a toy in her hands. It might have been an unconscious effort because she hasn't gone that far ever since that day and started crawling again. But we are hopeful that she'll do it again before the 18th. She has started taking the walker for a walk literally and changing directions as she pleases, and it's been so much fun to watch. Her hair is also getting fuller, soon i'll be able to put a bow on it.

Well, reality has started to sink in as some of the mommies are going back to work in the next few weeks. We cramped quite a lot of activities into this week's agenda as these days are coming to an end. Hope we'll still stay in touch after that.... it has been fun times.

Kay is adjust well to her new baby sitter, but there is still some screaming at the door when i leave in the morning. But she'll have to get use to it i guess. I'll be submitting my business application to the government soon, so it may mean more days at the baby sitter for her.

Oh, just to a note to wish my mum a Happy Birthday today and all woman ... Happy Woman's day.

First swim !

2008-02-17T21:12:00.007-05:00

February 15th - Kay took her first "dive" into the swimming pool on Friday. Well, it started off with a little anxiety, as shown in the photos, but she did eventually enjoy the experience. We led the pack in getting the babies to do the head-dive /underwater experience. The trick was to blow real hard into their faces just before immersing their heads, so their natural reflex would be to close their eyes and hold their breath. Kay was pretty brave, no cries, no struggle. We did it for 4 times. Not bad for a first try. Well, of course we had mouthfuls of tasty chlorinated water at some point, but all went well. Those new floating things are great !

February 17th - Dinner tonight was scrumptious. We had seared carrots & string beans with Salmon and saffron raisin rice. Kay's first taste of Salmon. I ended up eating most of it, as with all other food that I make for her. It was yummy. She seems to like the braised string beans better.

February 14th - Just a note to say that Kay's first day at the baby sitter's went well. Ozleyis, the absolutely adores her. And Kay really loves her kids, a girl-6-Dilara and a boy-4-Shawn. Dilara got a big hug and kiss from Kay that day. It's strange how Kay like little girls better...

Now I wish you were making a fuss...

2008-02-11T10:46:00.002-05:00

The many ironies in life, like wishing that Kay is now fussy and throwing her cheerios on the floor, instead of lying in bed listless. Poor girl is having the runs in her diapers and vomiting everything she takes in. Worst of all is seeing her so dull, tired and drowsy, with a frown in her eyebrow. She is in pain and there is nothing I can do to help. Made an appointment with the Pediatrician this afternoon, so we'll just have to wait. Luckily, she just had another bottle of milk with no vomits so far...and drifted back to sleep. Let's hope it stays in.

We are supposed to start taking her to the babysitter tomorrow and thursday, but i guess that will have to be postponed until she's well. Yes, we found a nice Turkish lady, named Ozleyis, to take care of her on Tuesday and Thursday so that I can clock in some work during the day and go meet clients. I should also be starting to prepare getting my business officially set up in March. That is the plan, at least. Let us just get through this and make sure Kay is well again.

February 9th - Well on the brighter side, it was just 2 days ago , that Kay started making her first step. Yesterday night, she was still happily scooting around on the walker...for the first time, and pretty proud of herself for doing it.

A New year indeed...

2008-01-18T23:18:00.001-05:00

The year usually only begins for me after my birthday. Many thanks for the birthday wishes, coffee treats, lunches and dinners. My indifference to birthdays, especially my own, seems to have lost steam this year. I'm unusually happy. It was something my friend said that really sunk in and tugged at my heartstrings.

Every year I get older and every birthday I celebrate, will be another year I spend with Kay....and Cheeyuen. Thanks for putting this wonderful line together...Thubee.

Our 10th anniversary marked by the birth of Kay really is an extra special milestone for us as a family. I'm saying my prayers and thanks as I'm typing these words on my new Mac book. Haha, can't help but brag about it. Yes I have been spoilt, this year and every year by my dear husband. And that special locket will contain these beautiful memories forever and will one day be passed along to Kay.

It's been quite a holiday season for us. Trip to New York (thanks for the hospitality Joyce & Chungwoh), first Christmas tree, Dinners, Lunches, baking and making truffles for friends. Our only regret is not having family around. Times like these make it especially hard to ignore this reality. We are seriously thinking of sending Kay back to Singapore for her summer holidays once she hits 6 years old. It will be a great way to instill some independence and get her acquainted with family and traditions there. That is not too far away I imagine :) now that she's turning one soon.

Right now I'm just wishing for this season of colds, teething and nasty coughs to be over for my precious little Kay. It's been dragging on for more than a month now. Dried up snort on her face has almost taken over her rosy cheeks and become a permanent feature. That said, nothing has dampened her spirits so far and nothing is stopping her from roaming around in quick steps on all fours. Standing up for 10 seconds on her own is the new record of the day. Maybe she would take her first steps by her first birthday. It's an extremely surreal feeling to see them gain this new independence. That baby that was so fragile, small and helpless is finally growing up. Kay is officially 10 months old today.

First Post in 2008!!

2008-01-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

It has been some time since I(the daddy) post something on the blog. Going to make use of this wet, surprisingly warm Sunday morning to jot down a few quick notes.

Firstly, just wanted to say much I adore the 2 girls in the pic. It has been a really exciting year with Kay coming into our lives - heck, this blog will not even be in existence if it was not for her. Also I am so proud of Sching who has been a fantastic mom despite having to care for Kay for most of the last ten months. Judy's visit in Oct has definitely helped a lot and also make us realize how family plays an important part in the care for a baby.

Talking about caring for Kay, we are glad that we have found a baby-sitter for Kay. With Sching moving forward with her design business, Kay will need to be cared by someone else, at least for 3-4 days a week. We are always seeking to find someone who can speak cantonese/mandarin so that Kay can get a bit of Chinese influence - her parents obviously sucked at that right now. Thankfully Daniel's mom-in-law has agreed to take care of Kay and let's hope that Baby Kay is going to behave. She is coming to an age when we need to concern about discipline and it will be good for her to have multiple figures to learn about right and wrong, plus everything else in-between :-)

Front teeth for christmas

2007-12-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

Kay will be getting her two front teeth for christmas this year ! The best present ever. Well, abate the running nose and slight fever from the tooth eruptions, i think she'll be happy to take a real bite at her food. I just hope she gets well before our long trip to NYC this weekend. It'll be tough travelling with a baby who is unwell. Wish us luck.

Oh she is 9 months old today ! Ok better jot down those important dates first.

Dec 12th - front left tooth showing
Dec 14th - front right tooth showing
Dec 18th - front left left tooth showing

This has been a busy season for us, with tonnes of sewing, baking and meeting up with friends. The Jo's moms gathered at our house to sew tag blankets for the little ones, so we had sewing machines taking up our whole dining table for the whole of last week. As you know, it's hard to really get anything done, with the babies crawling, feeding..and napping. But it was always nice to get together. Will post pictures of the projects we made soon.

A month of craziness

2007-12-04T23:38:00.000-05:00

Again time seems to fly by so quickly. There are so many things that happened in the past month that i don't know where to begin. First a quick note to say that I have fully recovered, wound-wise. The nurse stopped coming to visit me on November 19th. That makes it about 2.5 months since the first surgery. I'm glad it's over. It's been too long too painful. Anyway it's something that Kay has to be reminded of in future :)

Other then that we are also seeing many milestones for Kay. She is crawling really well now. And she is also pulling herself up and standing on her own without our help. Most mornings, I'll find her standing in the crib waiting for me to open her door. Sometimes with a big smile, sometimes screaming. But still as adorable as ever. She is a pretty happy baby, as long as she is played with, fed and rested. Not much complains except for her new found dislike for being in the carseat. It's been a struggle every time we get in and it often becomes a crying match until we reach the destination. I'm told it's a phase, so I'm just hoping it'll past soon. Oh, did we mention Kay cut her second tooth on the day my mum left for NZ? Yes,

October 27th - for the second tooth (bottom right). There is still no sign of the top teeth yet even though the symptoms seem to be persistently present.

November 22nd - Set up our first christmas tree. This year's theme is the Nutcracker & friends. Milo and Tea (our cats) have been catching the birds i put up on the tree. Every morning I find a "dead" one some where on the floor.

December 1st - Kay's first Santa Clause parade in Stouffville. It was freezing -15 degrees out there. She was mostly bundled up and quiet cos' of the cold...so we're not sure if she enjoyed it. It was a pretty big parade for a small town.

December 2nd - Kay's first encounter with Santa himself at daddy's Telus Children's christmas party. She didn't scream or cry on Santa's lap. Brave kid. It was fun...balloons, cotton candy, free food and good company.

Maybe i should start blogging with more dates....i'm realizing that I'm not recording down a lot of things and I forget.

Well, as you know the weather here is now getting pretty brutal. Snow storms for the last 3 days, icy driveways, slippery dirty roads, and a foot of snow in our backyard and garden. Now we wished we had a snow blower and a smaller driveway.

First halloween

2007-11-04T01:01:00.000-04:00

Trick or treat in Stouffville can be pretty fun, especially when you have 10 cute babies all dressed up for the occasion. Our mom's group in stouffville is growing and it will be nice to be able to see the little munchkins grow up together.

Last 2 nights has been pretty rough for Kay. Poor girl is down with runny nose, cough and a slight temperature. This is the first time she has fallen sick. She couldn't sleep nor eat very well and that in another way translates into my day as well. Spent 4 hours trying to put her to bed tonight. Felt a bit like being back in the first month again. Anyway, beside having snort all over her nose she is still pretty active and cheerful during the day, so i'm not so worried. Since it's a virus, Dr Tolkin couldn't give her anything. So we did the good ol' Vicks rubs on the feet and chest....and of course Tylenol for infants in yummy White grapes flavour. Not sure if any of it worked, but it gave me some peace of mind. It's hard to see them in pain.

Now i know how my mum felt when she knew i wasn't well. Anyway, my left wound has completed healed to the surface last week. Yoohoo !! Time to celebrate with champagne and wine, maybe not yet. Can't wait for rightee to be done as well. There is still 2.5 cm to go and I have a bottle of nice Cabernet waiting to be popped. Come November 11th and I would have gone through 2 full months of wound dressing. What can i say, except that I've got a great nurse and it's healing well. Carol, if you are reading this, thanks for yanking that packing in and making sure i get my daily dose of humour as well. Hmmm...felt like i have written this before.

Realised that I haven't posted much about my mom's visit. I guess it's the heart-felt warmth and a really a sense of family that cannot be described by too many words. We are just really glad she was here to help and be with us. Wish we brought her to do more sightseeing of the city, but at least she covered the 2 main attractions: Niagara falls and Chinatown. At least one of them is in Toronto. :)

One month of getting better ...

2007-10-19T23:39:00.000-04:00

It's been one month since i last posted anything. It's been a great one month full of life experiences, more pain, more love, more milestones and more of everything. It's all good. I've now learned to look on the bright side whenever things get bad, well you know what i'm talking about. My second surgery was essential and it ended up being a good thing. The healing was faster as it didn't get as bad. Well, things are made better with mum being here to help with Kay. It's been a real blessing. In the end Kay got the best bargain of all...she got to meet grandma and all that extra attention. Though the nurse still comes in everyday to change my dressing, it ain't as bad as the beginning. Thanks Nurse Carol, for the daily doses of humour. I have a lot to be thankful for this month. Great mum, great husband, great baby, great friends, great nurses, great health care...great to be alive.

Went for Japanese buffet today with Paul, Sarah (from NZ, doing an exchange program in ryerson) and my mum. Haven't had so much food in a long time. And Kay....she's a happy baby. Had her first encounter with Shrek today and was a little frightened. So funny. :)

First Tooth and a new boob for mummy

2007-09-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

It's so exciting, so joyful, so heartwarming and sometimes so painful (for me, at least). Kay just cut her first tooth today. Bottom right front tooth to be exact. And she is a happy chubby baby as usual, loving her rice cereal with peas and carrots. I actually love...I mean really enjoy making baby food. Steaming the bag of organic baby carrots, blending them with the Magic bullet and routinely spooning them into little containers. It's fun. So far we haven't bought a single jar of baby food, except for the cereals. So... Kay is happy and learning the game of peek-a-boo.

Mummy on the other hand is not so great. My big infection has finally become the "worse case scenario" according to all the handbooks and internet resources. But good news is there is nothing a little surgery wouldn't fix. So I went through that on September 12th and the real ordeal of dressing/ packing the wound starts. Dr Pallister told me it was the worst abscess she has ever seen and they drew out about half a pound of green pus. Not a very pretty thought, especially when they also have to pack the inside of the open wound with 4 metres of gauze-tape. And guess what, i have to continue doing this packing and unpacking everyday until the cavity heals from the inside out. Well, at least i don't have to do this myself, a nurse would visit me everyday until i recover. For a person who totally blacked-out at the sight of blood, the thought of all these would have killed me. But I think I handled it pretty well, especially when I've got such great support from Cheeyuen and also when I see the sweet, toothless smile on Kay's face. Well, guess i just needed to get the bad stuff out of my system so the good things will follow. Just doing my time for some bad karma I've acquired somewhere along the way.

Anyway, my mum is on her way to help out with my recovery and also with Kay. She might be at the airport collecting her luggage from the belts right now. Cheeyuen's gone to pick her up. It must be a journey of anxiety, worry and excitement for her and a pretty long one from NZ. Kay will be seeing her grandma for the first time when she wakes up in the morning. All will be better tomorrow. Right now I just feel blessed to have a wonderful husband who's been doing all the baby carrying-bathing-changing-feeding, cooking, working and caring for the past week while i was in pain ...and actually for the past nine years. Thanks hon. This will just be a post without photos, but with a lot of heart.

milestones

2007-09-07T14:53:00.000-04:00

People mark new milestones in their lives and careers when something drastic or significant happens. With a baby, however, every week or even everyday could be a milestone. Today, Kay has reached one...she has graduated to diaper size #3!!! yippee...the fat butt could no longer be wrapped by #2. Since the design has changed a little, Elmo is now on her backside and not the front. Yesterday, she also started getting on her hands and knees. You see the little butt rocking forward and back as she tries out her new found talents. She is also doing a lot of Crib gymnastics ...flipping. rolling, grabbing, daggling...

Yummy !!

2007-09-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

Here is the action sequence for the first successful feeding.
Kay has since progressed to rice cereals, carrots and peas.

First cereals and carrots and new friends

2007-08-30T16:47:00.000-04:00

Time seem to pass as Kay heads into her 5th month. After that routine check-up on Aug 21 at Dr Tolkin's, we got the go ahead to start on solids. First attempt was not great as Kay was still pushing the food out with her tongue. Second try was much better, she finished 3 tablespoons of rice cereals mixed with bananas. This week i started her on carrots.

Just 2 days ago, the funniest thing happened Kay actually fell asleep while i was feeding her cereals and carrots. She started nodding off in the bumbo chair, with a face full of gooey cereal. Didn't care a bit about how messy she was...just drifting off into Neverland. It was too funny....at least to me. :)

Well, we think she may be teething as there has been 'painful' cries from her with lots of gum chewing and scratching of her hair. It's good that she has met a few new friends at the neighbourhood cafe who are all going through the same experiences. They are all March babies. Niall (March 12), Paige (March 15), Kay (March 18) and Mina (March 24)....oh and one bigger brother Andreas (Feb 13). We meet every Wednesday mornings at Jo's for a cuppa and share our week with each other. It'll be fun to see them grow up together. Hopefully we'll still be in touch to celebrate their first birthdays together.

Right now, I just hope that I recover from "thy wretched pain in the breast" !!!! These demonic swells just won't go away. Yes, i got the mastitis back again. Now on my 4th course of meds. But everything will get better and we are just grateful that Kay sleeps through the night.

A day by the lake...

2007-08-15T21:11:00.000-04:00

It was a nice day and what would be better than having a picnic by Mussellman Lake... our friend Thuwaibah was visiting from downtown. So off we went, with fish and chips "take-out", an old quilt cover, and enough milk for Kay. It was a nice 3 hours lazing by the water. Everything would've been perfect if not for the parking ticket we got !! It was just too bad that we stepped away to get ice-cream...for 5 mins. Darn ! Anyway, it was an expensive picnic but we had a good time.

Hot summer's day

2007-08-03T23:48:00.000-04:00

Cool dude ?

My sweetie pie...

Moving around the cot as she sleeps

Kay and Niall at Jo's

You would think that summer is good for going out, but with the heat blazing at 35 degrees we are forced to go to the malls or stay at home. It is still very hot when we headed out to the post office at around 5pm today. Kay was soaked in sweat when we reach there, and it was just a 5 minutes drive away. With all that padding and tight-buckles on the car-seat it can get pretty warm for her in the back on a hot day like this.

Just wanted to note that I've fully recovered and life is back to normal. Kay is sleeping extremely well at night, usually from 9pm to 6am and goes back to sleep after the 6am feed. And we have noticed that she moves around quite alot in the baby cot during the night. She is usually in a different part of the cot every time we check on her. Even though I haven't seen it for myself, I think she is probably able to flip back from her tummy position onto her back. She wasn't able to do that last week. This week, she has also discovered her own toes.

Wednesday, we went out for coffee at Jo's cafe in Stouffville with Rossana and baby Niall. They are such cuties together. Both of them born a week apart. ...12th and 18th. We'll try to make the meetings more regular since we all live in Stouffville. It was fun.

I'm beginning to think about what i want to do after this year ends. With the EI running out, I'll have to do something for sure, even though I'm really enjoying my time with Kay and would love to continue looking after her. But it must be pretty stressful for Cheeyuen to be shouldering all that financial burden. It's hard to find romance in our lives when we're both tired at the end of the day. (Read : we just want to fall asleep in our bed) But Kay is always there to cheer things up and bring the love back into perspective.

Both Kay and Cheeyuen are fast asleep now as I'm typing this blog. It feels really nice to have some time to myself and just reflect on the day that went by so quickly. Right now, I need to find myself back again...start reclaiming my body, mind and soul. I feel as if I have given them all to Kay since she came into this world. Never thought it takes so much to be a mother. There's really so much to learn.

BBBBBQQQQQ .... !

2007-07-28T23:19:00.000-04:00

Tis the season for BBQs... here are snap shots from the recent gathering of Cheeyuen's Telus team in our backyard.

Grandma giggles with the girls

the experienced mamas at work

girls talk
joyce, baby kay and baby cheeyuen

mmm...the spread on the grill

the crowd

grandmamas love kay

super gal !

the boss.

No pain no gain

2007-07-28T15:31:00.000-04:00

Oopps... the little bald patch 'exposed' !

Kay on the throne...

ghetto baby

Kay and Gabe at the "sushi-nazi's" restaurant in Newmarket.

Kay the serious baby and Rachel the "wan-pei" baby

wow... it's literally 3 weeks of "pain in the boob" for me.
I have been suffering from Mastitis, apparently common in nursing mothers, with clogged milk ducts that turn into an infection. It's been pretty tough for Kay and I to go through this period. I had to take care of her alone with cheeyuen being away on business for a couple of weeks. And because of the antibiotics i'm taking, Kay has to be forced to go on the bottle 'cold turkey'. For the first few days, she was just wailing and screaming her lungs out, probably from missing the breastmilk and the closeness of nursing.

Her voice turned hoarse and husky. Her poo turn dark green. Poor girl.
But she's doing really well now... almost fully adjusted to formula milk and getting into a good sleep schedule. She actually sleeps for 9 hours at night and naps really well during the day. She's back to being a happy baby and so is mummy & daddy.

Well, i'm still in the process of recovering and would probably start thinking about stopping nursing after that. I want to start enjoying my time with Kay and not deal with my own bodily pains for a change. There is so much pressure in this society to breast feed that it's become ridiculous. Anyway, i have already done my dues for the past 4 months, enduring the constant throbbing pains. So Kay, better be thankful to mummy.

She is our little angel. A very serious one, nonetheless, who likes to watch and observe and learn. Drooling and spitting up as we coax a little smile out of her. Watching her grow has been the most fascinating thing ever. She is now playing on her own on the exersaucer and making friends of her own. Well, I set up the playdates but she makes the friends. Rachel and Gabriel are her first two pals. It'll be fun to see how they grow up to be.

That's it for now. We just had BBQ with Yolande, Jay and AJ in the backyard. Need to take a bath and continue with our 6th episode of "24" on the computer. With Kay sleeping better, Cheeyuen and I are enjoying more time together doing our favourite past-time...watching TV serials.

canada day weekend

2007-07-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

Kay and Rachel

July 1st celebrates Canada's 140th birthday, and also Kay's first as a CBC :)
We could see the fireworks from Stouffville's Memorial Park from our own backyard...isn't that cool. It went on for about 15 mins at 10pm last night, while Kay was sleeping.

We had friends over the night before to have a BBQ and also to enjoy the strawberry festival in Stouffville. Turned out that no one made it to the festival, which was really lame with nothing more than a few stalls with miserable baskets of tiny strawberries and shops selling sunglasses. The BBQ itself was pretty fun though. Nice company good food.

Samantha, Rachel and Sean came in tow with their yellow Bumbo seat, which Kay seems to love as well. It's a great little stool, especially for little ones learning how to sit upright. Rachel has grown into a playful little baby with a great head of hair. She is almost 2 months older than Kay. Hmmm...I wonder when Kay's bald spot in the back of her head will grow hair ?

Lydia and David are the excited new parents-to-be. About 15 weeks into their pregnancy they are just at the beginning stages of trying to learn all about the journey ahead....diaper changes, types of strollers to buy, what baby needs for the first days at the hospital and listening to my ranting/ complaints about breastfeeding and stuff.

Zahra brought us a cheesecake for dessert and told stories about a drug bust in our old condo and her 99cent dinners. Well, she is our ex-neighbour at Avondale. So apparently, the guys in the flat next to us might be involved in the drug bust in some way...the story didn't really have a conclusion. And she is pretty upset by me saying that she didn't have a good photo in her Facebook profile. :) ...we were just teasing her and she fell for it. Anyway, she will be moving to Sudbury in August for a new job.

Well, as for Kay i think she is beginning to notice food that is not breast milk. She makes suckling motions with her mouth when i hold an ice cream stick in front of her. But i didn't work with chicken wings...so i think she's going to have sweet tooth like mummy.

miss bossy pants

2007-06-29T11:08:00.001-04:00

The past week was just lotsa feeding and struggling to sleep at night. Don't know if it's just me, but i feel that Kay has grown quite a bit in one week. She is feeding constantly when she is awake. Could be one of the growth spurts that books talk about. This would be 3 months and 2 weeks.

She has started to grab things with her hands even though she still can't quite control it. During diaper changes and when we carry her, she will grab on to our collar or t-shirt. And she loves grabbing at the little skirt on her romper. She loves all things round...the shape of peoples faces, the ruffles on her bouncing chair and the circles on the underside of her stroller canopy. She'll just stare at them.

And with greater neck control and very strong thigh-muscles, she loves "standing" on her feet...with our help of course. It's a bit wobbly but really cute as she stares at you with those big eyes. She is also strong enough to do "sit-ups", when we hold her hands and pull her up from lying down to a sitting position. Wondering if we should get her one of those bumbo chairs. :)

This summer has seen extremely hot days where we were just sweating it out at home. But yesterday was great...it cooled down to 22 degrees with a nice breeze. Finally received Kay's birth certificate yesterday after a bit of a cat and mouse chase with the courier. Now we can start getting her a passport so she can travel to see her grandamamas in New zealand and singapore.

Last night was a struggle to get miss bossy pants to sleep. Spent 2 hours trying to soothe her screaming & crying. Feeding her, rocking her and committing all the no-nos in the textbooks for parenting. The minute we put her down on the crib she would start protesting. Oh well, it's a brand new day today, will worry about it again tonight. That's my life as a mom.

Mural mural on the wall...

2007-06-16T20:18:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the drawing on Kay's nursery. Did it in 3 hours yesterday...between her screaming and crying ...and after she fell asleep after midnight.
It started as a sketch on paper, then i simply freehand the curves with a pencil directly on the wall and paint with white paint. The birds were done after midnight.
I think I like it, hopefully Kay does too.

it;s finally summer

2007-06-16T12:56:00.000-04:00

Big kiss for the princess

The boss...sitting on our new sectional sofa

Knowing her ABCDs

Keeping cool.

The big Discovery

hey i never thought i'd say this, but the good ol' warmer season is here. Days have been hot and humid, but i guess not quite in the same intensity as in Singapore. It's still bearable if you turn on the fan.

Kay has finally hit the 3 month mark and made quite a few milestones along the way.
On June 2nd, she slept from 11.30pm to 7am....the longest ever. Then after that it is back to the 4am & 7am feeds. But it's a start and we're happy. ..sorry i meant I'm happy cos' i'm the one waking up :)...sorry hon.

The next weekend June 8th, she has also started discovering her own little hands and few days ago ...her feet. It's the most amazing thing to see her explore and inspect her little fingers and finally understanding that they belong to her.

2 nights ago, she actually fell asleep without much effort on her own baby crib, in her own room. Yes, the first steps to a little independence, we hope. Well, she's been sleeping in her stroller next to my bed all this while.

Well, as she gets more alert during the day, keeping her occupied becomes eminent to my sanity. She gets bored by the same scene/ toys more easily now. And guess what, she has started to watch the tele. In fact, we went through 85% of the movie "Happy Feet" yesterday on the computer. Currently, her favourite book is "Peekaboo" by Sesame street and "Abra Cadabra" the online storybook.

Also, thanks to aunty Kate for starting her on the ABCDs...and the ACDCs. She looks like a really cool rock-chic.

She's feeding on my left arm while i'm typing this.

The many faces of Kay ..and what's that Smell ???

2007-05-27T01:33:00.001-04:00

It's 2 months 2 weeks coming.
Kay has developed quite a wide range of facial expressions : from sulking, giggling, smiling, frowning and pouting. As you can see in our latest post of photos. She has learnt how to respond to our voices and could 'almost' conduct a decent conversation with us. Today, she managed to utter a 3 syllabus sound : "Agaahem" ... with great diction and pronunciation. Whatever that means we don't know.

Enjoy her latest photos here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sching.ng/20070516KayMth2

It's spring inching into summer, so we are enjoying our backyard quite a bit. Kay enjoys sitting out with us and watching the trees sway in the wind. I think she also spotted a few flying geese overhead one day. Cheeyuen purchased his second toy of the season. It's a TORO gas powered, self-propelled 22" lawn mower....in striking red. Did a test drive on our lawn after we got it today. Pretty cool. Having lived in the city all our lives, we are virgin lawn-mowers !

Today is major shopping day, we also bought a truck load full of storage furniture from IKEA. Kay is pretty good when we are out shopping, she basically sleeps through it in our arms or in the stroller. In fact, she only takes afternoon naps when she is in the car or when I bring her out in the stroller. She loves to be on the move. We'll see how that plays out in a month or two.

For me, I'm getting really attached to the milk and saliva smell in her hair and her breath...oh, my baby. Makes me feel very blessed when i hold her close and smelling her tiny hands...which by the way, could get pretty stinky at times. One day, her hands and mittens smelt like wet dirty socks...eewww. Took a few days to shake that smell off despite all the washing we did . But regardless, I'm still feeling the fuzzy warmth whatever she smells like ...

Feeding, First shots, moving house, bath time, birthday, new car, mother's day and more boxes ..

2007-05-16T00:17:00.000-04:00

wow it seems like ages since i had time to write in this blog.
Many things have happened amongst the feedings, pooping and crying.
Kay is almost 2 months old now.

View out from our driveway to our new neighbours across Manitoba street.
Our driveway is huge... parks 5 cars ! Lotsa snow-shovelling to do in winter too.

Feeding time : Taken from my angle of view... how angelic she looks while sucking away.
Thanks to Joan for the "Lin" one-sie / t-shirt...she looks really cute in it.

The after-math ... spitting and burping

First shots:
Kay got her first 2 vaccination shots at Dr Tolkin's clinic on May 4th. I'm still not sure what they are for...just got to trust the pediatrician. Well i think Kay was really brave. Only started wailing after 3 seconds when the needle was out. All is good after a little breast milk...the only place to do it was a bench in the corridor which had a great view of the Don Valley area.

Moving house:
The move went well i guess. Kay and I wasn't really part of the action. We went to the house early that morning and set up the diaper / feeding station. Then basically waited. Rod arrived first with some stuff in his car. Followed by Cheeyuen and Andrew. The moving guys from Sven was right behind. Seems like a breeze ...but poor cheeyuen must be totally tired out. He still had to go back to the condo to get the cats. In the end ... came back with the cats and another car-full of stuff. Amazing...and thanks again.

Bath time:
Has been fun so far. Kay really loves the water. Might take her swimming in the summer. We think she looks cute in the Duckie Towel from pottery barn kids...thanks to Dzeneta.

Birthday:
Happy belated birthday to Cheeyuen. His first birthday as a daddy. As expected, there was no present from me...all i can do now is online shopping. Will make it up to him some time later and in other ways i guess. All Kay needs to do is to give him a nice big smile.

New car:
Well, i guess he did get himself a big present. Collected his brand new Mazda 3 sport on his birthday. A nice black number with shiny rims. Looks great in the driveway next to the Acura.
Will post photos when I find the charger to my camera...it's still in one of the boxes.

Mother's day:
Was extra special....now it actually means I'm being celebrated. My mum was the first to wish me happy mother's day with an e-card. Cheeyuen got me a cute toy with a bobbing head. Kay basically just spit all over me and then gave me a big smile.

More boxes:
Yes, 70% of the house is still in boxes. It's hard to have baby and try to unpack. Plus we need to get storage furniture before we can put things away. So far we have bought 3 big items online ... our TV entertainment unit (which looks amazing), our bed and dining chairs. Love the internet.

Some random images taken before we moved :

5 weeks and counting ...

2007-04-25T09:46:00.000-04:00

Some quiet playtime with Mr. Cat..

Finally, we enjoy a walk in the park...some fresh air.

It's been quite a busy 4 weeks for us, as you can tell from the gap between this post and the last.
Kay is now 5 weeks old. Well, with a feeding schedule of every 45 minutes to an hour, it's no wonder she is bulking up (read: fats) around her cheeks, arms and thighs. For me, breastfeeding is still a challenge. Imagine the hourly schedule, plus physical stress and endless diaper changes. However, the emotional bonding is indescribable. There is so much theory and philosophy revolving the subject that every single problem i have encountered so far is probably experienced by some other mother some where. At least I'm comforted to feel that i'm not alone. Anyway, I'm just going with my instincts right now and feeding on demand...i feel like a cow some times. That's the rant for today. We have compiled a full set of photos taken in the past 4 weeks here >>
http://picasaweb.google.com/sching.ng/KaySFirstMonth

enjoy the pics.

Today "was" the actual due date !!

2007-04-05T20:08:00.000-04:00

Hey guess what... today is April 5th. Kay was supposed to be due today, but I guess she is too eager to see the world. Now we know she is not the patient kind of girl. Well I know best as I deal with her loud cries for milk everyday. Anything she wants, she wants it "NOW !!". I'm usually too stressed during those times to take any photos...so all you see are the calm, quiet and cute little Kay. These pictures are taken before and after a "Tummy-time" we have in the afternoon... it's when I put her on her belly so that she can have some exercise and strengthen the muscles on her neck. Again, all looks nice and calm.

Our new home ...

2007-04-05T19:51:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to share with everyone how happy we are to have gotten the keys to our new house. Will be moving there at the end of April. It's located in the small town of Stouffville, about 1.5 hours north of Toronto. It'll be quite a commute to work for me, but it's for the greater good and much better environment to grow up for Little Kay. Check out more pics here > http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sching.ng/OurNewHouse
If you'd like us to send you the new address, please drop us a note...not too wise to post it on the blog. ;-P

Tired Eyes/Open Eyes!

2007-03-25T19:50:00.000-04:00

Just realized that Kay's open alert eyes are a big contrast to Sching's and mine. But looking at the pics above , could not help but chuckle at our lack of sleep - it's all worth it!

Cats are neglected

2007-03-25T19:42:00.000-04:00

Our poor cats - Tea and Milo. Our 'original' babies have been banished from the bedroom ever since Kay is home. They are also not receiving the normal 'jump into our laps and get tickled' treatments.

The cats are still getting used to having a new 'body' around the house and I cannot wait to see Kay grow up and start playing with the cats.

The Sarong

2007-03-25T13:21:00.000-04:00

Been using the Sarong over the last few days. The Sarong is amazingly comfortable for Kay and she loves to be in it – often keeps her sleeping for over an hour without crying. I think the snug feel of the sarong reminds her of her time in mommy’s womb.

The sarong was brought over from Singapore and it comes with an instructional DVD – DVD is actually quite funny as it shows us the features of the sarong, including the availability of a pouch that you can keep your cell phone and tissues conveniently. Of course these are the 2 most essential items that a mom/dad needs to carry in Singapore :-)

I like the sarong too – with the sarong, both my hands are actually free and I can actually do simple tasks like typing this blog entry. Pics above shows the Sarong in action (Paul is a witness to the Sarong's advantages)

little miss sunshine...

2007-03-22T17:19:00.000-04:00

Finally, both cheeyuen & i have mastered the art of typing with one hand...and falling asleep at mid-day when it's bright and sunny out.

Just wanted to say how thrilled i am with the new journey. Sure it's painful for me literally, with all the healing wounds and soreness from breastfeeding...but it will all pass soon. Especially when you see that "button-nose" of hers and her tiny eyes staring back. The "Small-eyed girl" has finally become someone's mummy...

oh thanks for all the flowers and gifts !

Sleepless nights have just started!

2007-03-20T16:26:00.000-04:00

Sching and I thought we have a pretty quiet baby - that thought was quickly banished on Kay's first night. She is pretty demanding when it comes to feeding, diapers , or just attention. All the advice/feedback from friends seem to make sense now :-)

However it is all worth it especially you see her. Some sample ones above.

Proud Parents

2007-03-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

I am falling asleep as I finish this post - just want to share a couple of pics that shows how happy we are to see Baby Kay for the first time. Our lives have just changed forever!

The CALM before the PUSH

2007-03-19T00:40:00.000-04:00

We like to display some pics that totally belies the whole traumatic(for me, at least) labour process.

Pic 1: Me sitting really relaxed reading the Expectant Father(thanks Lucas, for the book), trying to crap in last minute info on how to handle the birth process

Pic 2: Sching sucking on some popsicles to keep hydrated

Pic 3: The cool Jacuzzi tub that Sching did not get to use as she was on epidural.

These pics were taken at around Mar 18 - 3pm .

Super Sunday Mar 18

2007-03-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

This has got to be better than the Chiefs winning the Superbowl!

Essentially, Mar 18 can be summarized as:

5 am: Sching waking up at screaming: 'Hon, My water broke!'
6 am: Arrived at hospital after panick-packing the hospital bags(we are supposed to do it this weekend)
8 am: Told to go home for 8 hours as the cervix is not dilated enough
11 pm: Contractions are so bad that Sching cannot open her eyes.
12 pm: Back to the hospital again - and there is no way we are leaving
2 pm: Epidural administered; suddenly labour seems better.
6 pm: Hey, cervix is ready - Baby Kay wants to be born
7ish pm: We officially welcome Baby Kay to the world.

About Kay's name

2007-03-12T01:11:00.000-04:00

This is what Kay's name will look like in Chinese - Lin Qi in Mandarin and Lam Kei in Cantonese. Lim is of course my surname and Kay means a kind of jade or outstanding; extraordinary; distinguished; admirable in Chinese.

Basically we started thinking about the name after we first moved to Toronto a few years back. As most of you will know, names are normally expressed as first name, last name in this part of the world. So a typical name like mine will be read as Chee Yuen Lim, with Yuen being normally ignored and Chee Lim is not exactly how i like to be called. I ended up combining Chee Yuen into a single word and of course Sien Ching has came up with something cooler like Sching. My name is still easy with friends but it gets a bit frustrating when I am speaking with strangers. So I have resorted to 'Nigel' when i am ordering pizzas or cabs, or anything that does not require me to be truthful.

Anyway, back to Kay - we decided to go with something simple to save her the frustrations of her parents, but more importantly, we like her name to somewhat link back to her Chinese name and voila Kay, as it sounds just like the Cantonese version. It will also make it easier for us to name her siblings(this is a BIG if) - eg Fay(next girl), Jay(boy), May, etc.

p/s:One more note for Singaporeans reading this, because of the Hanyu Pinyin name on my passport, I have Chee, Yuen, Lin, Z, Lim on my drivers license here - result of the Canadian Immigration when I first landed in Toronto, they actually went out of space because they cannot squeeze Lin Zhiyuan into my official documents.

Baby Diapers!!

2007-03-11T22:34:00.000-04:00

With the purchase of diapers, baby wash, & baby lotion today, preparation for Baby Kay's arrival is almost complete! Kay has been moving around pretty regularly and it looks like she is almost ready to face the world. It's been a whirlwind few months, when we start stocking up on baby stuff - big items like stroller, car seat, crib, and a house at Stouffville but of course plenty of smallish items like receiving blankets, onesies(thanks to the list from Andrew). Definitely more things to consider compared to playing golf :-)

Just a quick thank you...

2007-03-11T08:11:00.000-04:00

Already before her arrival, the celebrations and well wishes have poured it.
Thanks to all the friends and family for their gifts and happy happy thoughts.

will keep everyone posted when Kay is here !

Spring is here !

2007-03-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

March 11th... we move the clock forward to mark the arrival of spring.
This means we are closer to welcoming the arrival of Baby Kay. She is growing big and kicking a lot....