Happy first Birthday !

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.

A month of craziness

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.

miss bossy pants

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.

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

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 ...

Tired Eyes/Open Eyes!

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!

The Sarong

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...

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 !