Rachel's birthday

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

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

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.

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

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.
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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.