Phone Calls

En really enjoys making calls to the favourite people in his life. These people include: Xiao Gu (my husband's sister), his grandparents (grandpa and grandma), pa pa and ma ma. Once or twice a week, I will dial my parents (partly to occupy En's boundless energy) for En to talk to them. He will hold the handset and look quite serious. He will nod his head from time to time, say "yes" and gesture a little with his hands. I am not too sure what grandma asks him each time they converse. However, there is bound to be the following responses from En that seem to inevitably pop up again and again. For example: "En En feed fish", "mushrooms", "En En going botanic garden", "ma ma working". Well, to be fair, these phrases more or less describe his daily routine of feeding the goldfish, eating lunch (which may or may not have mushrooms but he seems to imagine them in every dish or wishes they were there!), and his desire to visit botanic gardens, one of his favourite outdoor places. As for ma ma working, that's moi working from home!

Working from Home

It may seem like a great idea for a mummy with a toddler to work from home. Yes and no. Its great that my boss has allowed me to work from home, especially cos of H1N1 now and cos I fall into the "high-risk" category, I need to take extra care of myself. Its also good cos I don't have to move around so much at home. In the office, I have to walk to the toilet and pantry, go downstairs to grab tea etc. Its also great cos I get to see En all the time if I want to! The downside is that he knows mummy is at home. He is much more accustomed to me working from home now, having done it for a few weeks, but he will come and bug me every now and then.

I do feel quite sorry for him as I know that he really wants me to play with him and must be wondering why mummy prefers the computer to him! Everytime I take a step away from my laptop, he will look at me with much hope and anticipation and say: " Mama finish work already". No matter that I had just started working on the laptop an hour ago or whether its toward evening time. I will let him know that Ma Ma will play with him soon, in half an hour's time or an hour's time.

When I was a full-time worker, you are fully at work. At that time (before En reached 6 months), I was quite focused at work and never really worried or thought about En at home cos I knew he was in my MIL's good hands. Perhaps it helped that I did not have to see his cute little face and hands waving to me, cajoling me to play with him. Now that I am working part-time, it feels like I have part of the deal. Partly at home, partly at work.

Creamy Shelley Pasta

Recently, En seems tired of eating porridge for lunch or even dinner. (But, I must first acknowledge and thank my wonderful mother-in-law for always overseeing the cooking of his nutritious porridge and even thinking of ways to make his food more exciting, like cooking tomato-based pasta with sauce made from scratch, yam rice, sweet potato rice! What a blessed boy En is! )So, even though I am quite heavily pregnant now, I have somehow resolved to try and make some different types of food for En to try. The additional challenge is to also make him eat his green vegetables, which he always spits out. His tongue seems to have a way of sifting through the fibrous creature and flicking it out quite adeptly without compromising on the rest of his meat or carbohydrate items spooned to him!

Today for lunch, we had creamy shelley pasta. It consists of sausages, celery bits, corn, carrots, cream and shell pasta. He was quite excited at first because it was a novel looking food item. He climbed into his high chair quickly, picked up his spoon and picked up each of the pieces with much gusto! Well, the adventurous spirit lasted about 10 minutes, after which, he started spitting out the celery and carrot bits. I was almost quite disappointed after all the effort to cook him something different. Then, I bribed him with some packet apple juice and fed him the rest of his meal. Think he managed half a chinese bowl of pasta. For those interested, I adapted it from one of the recipes from Annabel Karmel's book on feeding toddlers. She has some free recipes on her website as well. http://www.annabelkarmel.com/

Yesterday, I made fish fingers for En for dinner. He loved it! I had some ketchup sauce for him to dip it into. I was pleasantly surprised that it was so easy to prepare. He also had rice, some steamed green vegetables and soup from the adults' dinner dishes. I got the recipe from this mummy's blog http://littlegastronomy.blogspot.com/search?q=fish+fingers
She has lots of recipes, which may be more suitable for the toddler's palate 'cos she is local :) I am going to attempt more of the recipes she suggested in the future. Hopefully, with delivery of the second child and maternity leave, I will have more time on my hands to cook more for En!

Bikey Boy!

After some deliberation on whether to get (1) the little tricyle which can be pushed with a handle by an adult or (2) a bicycle, we decided on the latter for En. Afterall, he can grow into the bicycle and start learning riding skills earlier. Heh..its important to know how to ride a bicycle. Its one of those "life skills" that I think every person should have, along with swimming skills (in case you get thrown into the sea or your plane crashes into the sea), some basic cooking skills (to feed yourself when no one is at home to cook for you!), some housework etc. So, yes, En needs to ride a bicycle in case mummy asks him to run errands, like purchasing eggs from the supermarket or lunch from the market! :)

We got the bikey from Carrefour, Suntec about $59++ (on sale now). It was the smallest size and his legs could just reach the pedal, so we figured that that was good enough to start him off! The safety accessories are sold separately at the rollerblading section of the sports department. Check out En all decked out and on his debut ride downstairs of our flat! I like the second shot, which I asked him to pose for me. It was meant to be the kungfu pose, with a loud shout "Hoi"! (looks more like him saying, "check out this wristguard, I can barely move in them.. "). :P

Cousins

En's cousin, Min, has arrived in Singapore recently. We were all awaiting her arrival with much anticipation as she and her parents have been overseas for a year or so. En and Min are 3 weeks apart in age, with Min being the older sister. We make En call her "Min Min Jie Jie". She certainly is no stranger to En as we skype her and her mummy quite regularly from Singapore.

Thank God they took to each other as fish takes to water! In their first meeting, they played so well together! They were like long-lost friends who had not met for a while and resumed their friendship so easily after a hiatus without a hint of there being any separation! In their first meeting, En kept serving Min with water in case she was thirsty. So cute!!!

These are some pictures of the cousins playing with finger paint. After a while, En just had to go leave his handprints on Min's drawing block!

With moi delivering soon and my sister in law (Min's mummy) also delivering soon (i.e., our due dates are both in August!), we are gonna have two more babies in the family, alongside with these two toddlers. Am just so happy that they play so well together! :)

I am 2 years old

En turned 2 years old yesterday. Here is a picture of him taken during a family dinner just now, when we were cutting the birthday cake.

As I recall how he was delivered two years ago onto this earth, I thank God for all the two years that have passed. Indeed, as his pa pa said today, he has brought us lots of joy these two years and we thank God for this blessing to us. He is God's grace to us, hence the name "En" (i.e., God's mercy). We thank God also for all his family members that have been around as he is growing up. He is so blessed to have grandparents to love him, xiao gu and gu zhang to always bring him on fun outings and who also play a lot with him on a weekly basis, ah yee and yee zhang who also adore him and parents who love him and also try to discipline him!

Dear En, thank God for all the good things and people he has given you in your life. Our prayer for you as parents is that you will come to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour, love Him and serve Him with all your life.

What is this?

En has recently acquired a new habit. He will point to something he is not sure of (whether object or person) and ask: "What is this?" I am both quite tickled and fascinated by his question. I wasn't aware that toddlers would start asking this question so soon (not that I know when they usually start asking such questions!). For example, He has pointed to veins on my preggie tummy and asked "What is this". After I give him an answer, he will ask me the same question another two or three times before he seems satisified with my answer. Ah... the wonders of learning during childhood...

He is also starting to mimic other people, more specifically, children his age, in their speech. He used to call me "ma ma", but he recently heard some children calling their mothers "mummy". So, he sometimes calls me "mummy" now, which I quite like as well :) He also calls "pa pa" "Daddy" sometimes. Wonder if Pa Pa enjoys being called "Daddy" too? :P