Bible Verse of the Day

November 2010

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loving

We use the “naughty stool/chair” method as a form of discipline for our kids.  So whenever one of them misbehaves, he/she will get sent to the naughty chair and “sit out” his/her time.  For Ethan, he needs to sit for 4 minutes and for Hannah, it’s 1 minute; the number of minutes spent on the naughty chair is equivalent to the child’s age.

After their “time done” we’ll explain to them what they did wrong, and the child concerned will then promise to not do it again.  He/she will apologize and give each one of us a hug.

There was once when Hannah did something wrong.  I think she hit me with a toy or book, so she sat in the naughty chair.  When she was ready to say sorry, she came over and gave me a hug. 

Ethan said, “Daddy, come here.  I want to hug you too.  But I didn’t do anything wrong.  I just want to hug you because I love you…”

Awww…..

handymanny

Ethan has been picking up a few foreign language terms lately.  He learns a little bit of Chinese (Mandarin) in school and he has been asking me how to count in French (thank goodness I paid attention in class), how to say simple phrases like hello, goodbye, etc.  Other than French, he picked up how to say “hello” in Spanish.

Ethan: Hola!
Me: Hola!  Yes, Ethan..that’s Hello in Spanish…just like Handy Manny, right?
Ethan: What, Mommy?
Me: You know, Handy Manny?  He says, “Hola!  Handy Manny’s Repair Shop!  You break it…?”
Ethan (without missing a beat): YOU FIX IT!

Well…that’s how Ethan would run his “repair shop” 🙂

makemyday

Ethan: Mommy, your makeup today is beautiful.  I like it!
Mommy: But Ethan, Mommy’s not wearing any makeup today.
Ethan: Really?
Mommy: So do I still look nice?
Ethan: Yes of course Mommy! 🙂

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As the eldest among all his cousins, Ethan’s role as an influencer is reinforced each time he meets up with them.  Of course, it goes without saying that he gets daily practice by being a role model for little Hannah. 

Hannah adores and admires her brother.  She follows his actions and his words and looks up to him like any girl would look up to her big brother.  He is her idol, and Ethan…well, he basks in all that admiration.

Ethan’s influence does not end just there.  When his younger cousins are around him, they tend to gravitate towards him and follow his every move too.  Not long ago, I witnessed his cousin Jonathan, learn how to jump, just by watching Ethan.  His cousin Collin also followed exactly what Ethan did when he last visited us a few weeks back.

Big brother.  Role model.  And superstar to his sister and all his cousins.  Ethan has really come a long way from being Mr Bulat. 🙂

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hannah_20months Scrap Credits
Delicate QP from Fly Pixel Studio
Sugar n Spice Alphas from Scrappy Bug

Weight

Around 11.5 kilos

Height/Length

Around 82 cm

Teeth

8 incisors (4 top and 4 bottom), with 2 pramolars appearing on the right side (top and bottom), also 2 canines starting to appear at the top jaw.

Motor Skills

  • Hannah can eat by herself and finish her food quite fast too.
  • She loves to try new things, especially in the playground.  She loves the slides, but must still be supervised.
  • She likes to draw and scribble and paint.  She’ll play with the doodle pad and color pencils and paint (sometimes).  I might introduce her to finger painting soon!
  • Hannah loves to climb stairs, but we need to watch out when she is going down the stairs though.
  • She can bounce, whether on the couch or the floor; this is the first step towards learning how to jump.
  • Hannah can take a DVD, press the EJECT button on the player, insert the DVD, and press the CLOSE button on the player.
  • Basically, she will try to follow whatever her brother is doing.

Communication and Social Skills

  • Most of the time, we can understand what Hannah wants to convey, be it from her words or from her actions.  Sometimes if we do not understand what she is trying to say, Hannah will lead us by the hand and point to whatever it is she wants or do.
  • Her vocabulary is increasing every single day, so much so that I have really lost count of all the words she knows.  I’ll try to list as many as I can:
    • More” – actually she could already say this word a few months ago, and she uses it when she wants to ask for more food.
    • She knows her animals too, and she can say: Duck, Cat, Dog, Turtle, Cow, Pig, Bird, Bear
    • Three syllable words and phrases: “Mommy Come!”, “Mommy Card!”, “Baby BOP!”, “Chuggington!” and “Bar-wee!!” for “Barney”
    • Last syllable of some two-syllable and three-syllable words: “mote” for “remote”, “Mau” for “Mickey Mouse”, “Lo” for “Hello”, “puh” for “Apple”, “per” for “diaper”, “More..” while making the sign on both her hands for “No More!”,
    • Round
    • Yoyo
    • Wear (she’ll say “wear!” and point to her sandals, asking me to help her wear them)
    • Colors: “Lello” for “Yellow”, Red, “Boo” for “blue”, Green, Black, White
    • “Dai” for “dry”
    • Walk
    • “kau” for “couch”
    • Night – she says this when she wants to say “Goodnight”
    • Numbers she can say: Two, three, four, “fai”, eight, “nai”, ten
    • Ma (for “Ah Ma”), “Kurng” (for “Ah Kong”), “Poh”, “Pek”, “Koko”, “Kor Kor”, “Koo”, “Kim”, “Nah!” for “Hannah”
    • “Barbeee!” for “barbecued pork” i.e. char siew
    • Door
    • Baby
    • “Ka-kai”
    • “Tight” if she wants to tell me something she is wearing is too tight, and “tights” to refer to her tights.
    • “Wet” – she’ll tell me if her clothes are wet, or if she needs be changed (if her diaper is wet)
    • Body parts: Hair, eyes, nose, “mau” for mouth, fingers (she will show us her fingers), toes, leg, knees.
    • “Poo poo” and “Pee pee” 🙂
    • …but she still calls “Deh-deh” for “Daddy”
  • She can complete the ends of some favorite songs:
    • Mommy: Twinkle twinkle little..
      Hannah: TAR!!! … How I…
      Mommy: … wonder what you…
      Hannah: ARE!!
    • Radio: I got a feeling…that tonight’s gonna be a good..
      Hannah: NIGHT!
      Radio: That tonight’s gonna be a good..
      Hannah: NIGHT!
    • Radio: Every time I close my…
      Hannah: EYES
      Radio: I see my name in shining…
      Hannah: LIGHTS!
    • Mommy: London bridge is falling…
      Hannah: DOWN!
      Mommy: Falling…
      Hannah: DOWN!
      Mommy: Falling…
      Hannah: DOWN!

Food and Feeding

Still going very strong with her food intake, I’m pleased to note that Hannah is very adventurous in trying all kinds of food, even the salad that I make!  However, she loves to eat off my plate!  She also finds joy in feeding herself, either with a spoon or with her fingers.

In addition to drinking fresh milk and chocolate milk, I’ve also recently just supplemented her milk intake with GainPlus formula milk.  She will only drink the milk if it is mixed and cooked with oats though, and she takes about 1 or 2 helpings a day.  

Hannah is still breastfed and she still asks for “milk” especially at night. 

Hannah is also very receptive to the Amway chewable multivitamins I give her, and she can easily consume one tablet herself, just by chewing.

I can’t deny that my kids LOVE being in Toys ‘R’ Us.  For some magical reason, it unleashes surprise after surprise in the form of entertaining toys and delightful collectibles, some even enthralling to adults!  For Hannah, one of the attractions in this toystore is the children’s schoolbags.  She would head for the bag section and pull out girly pink bags, bags which are too big for her, but she would be contented just pulling and dragging it along.  Recently, she found this adorable Chuggington backpack in the store, and without fail, she would ask me to help her put it on, and she would then parade around the store.

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chuggington2

It’s just the right size for her, and she looks absolutely darling wearing it!

Granted, she’s too young to start school yet, but she probably got the idea from observing her brother carry his bag to school every day.

In any case, we decided it was time for her to experience the parent-toddler program run by the school Ethan goes to.  When Ethan was 2 years old, he attended the same program and benefited a great deal from it, so since Hannah is showing signs of readiness, we made an appointment for her to go for a trial class.

The parent-toddler program is a 1.5 hour program held once a week, and the child would be accompanied by a parent throughout the session.  This helps to further reinforce the parent-child relationship as well as promote social awareness as the child learns to mingle with kids their age.

parenttot1

When we arrived at the school on the day of the trial class, Hannah was all too eager to get down from the car.  She happily said, “Buh Bye!!!” to her Daddy and Ethan as she followed me to the class.  Oh by the way, Daddy and Ethan were off for their *football practice* 🙂

parenttot2

Hannah was quiet at first, but she was not TOO clingy.  She willingly played with all the toys in the playroom, and interacted with me, naming the animals and numbers and so on.

We then proceeded to do some arts and crafts, where she got to play with paint, sand and water.  She was provided with a mini kid apron, but she would not wear it, so I had to be careful not to get her shirt dirty.

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Probably intrigued by all of the different things to do, Hannah was a little quiet but she was certainly very participative.

parenttot4

When it was time to go and play in the outdoor playground, we finally saw some giggles and smiles…

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She loved the rocking horse, the slides, the little house…and it almost seemed like she was too reluctant to leave.

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After the playground, the kids were treated to some light snacks in the pantry and then it was circle time in the hall.  Hannah was very attentive to the teacher and even when all the other kids had lost their interest and were running around, Hannah was very interested in the story the teacher was telling.

parenttot7

Of course she was quickly distracted when she caught sight of Ethan, who had come back from football practice, and was waiting for Hannah’s class to finish. 

After the parent-toddler class, the teacher gave Hannah two stickers.  She loves stickers and was only too eager to show them off to us.  Hannah left the class looking very happy, but not before she gave the teacher a nice hug. 🙂

Certainly looks like she’s ready for the class, huh?

One of my favorite playtimes with Ethan Koko is when we play “Ring Around the Rosy”.  Sometimes Mommy would join us and we would all join our hands and make a little circle and sing and dance around together.  Sometimes it will just be Ethan Koko and me, and Mommy will sing the song.

But there are times when Ethan Koko is busy with his other activities.  During those times, I customize my “Ring Around the Rosy” playtime and have a lot of fun by myself too!

 

Who says we can’t have fun on our own? 😛

Two weeks ago, we took a short and much-needed vacation and headed up to Genting Highlands.  It was our very first trip up there in a really long while, the last time we’d been up there being in late 2005, a few months before Ethan was born.  The kids were both totally psyched up about the whole idea of the holiday, so much so that they didn’t even sleep at all the entire journey!  Normally Hannah would fall asleep midway, but this time, she was very much awake, and Ethan was asking, “Why is it taking so long to get to Genting Highlands?” all the way there…

We took a little bit longer than usual to reach our destination because we had to make more stops than usual: Ethan had to go for very frequent toilet breaks.

And despite the fact that the kids had no sleep at all the entire journey, they were as excited as ever when we arrived!

genting1

Besides being a chance for the kids to have fun, we also met up with Ah Ma and Ah Kong from Ipoh in Genting Highlands, and the kids were pleased as pie to see both their grandparents.

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Although the 3D2N stay in Genting Highlands left us all tired out, we all had a lot of fun… 🙂

I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

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Got the All Park day pass for us so that we could enjoy the rides in both the outdoor and indoor theme parks.  Hannah could still enter the parks for free for now, but there were some rides she was not allowed to ride on.

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“Daddy Daddy, can I please go ride on the airplane like Ethan Koko and Mommy?”

 genting6

Sorry baby, no can do…but we did take a family ride in the revolving teacups…and boy did that leave us incredibly dizzy!

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Hannah showing her “dizzy and confused” look.

 genting7

Feeding the koi in the koi pond. 

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Making sure the fish are well fed.

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All the fishes sure had a healthy appetite!

 genting10

Ethan..in deep thought…perhaps thinking about which ride to go on next!

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“What??!!!  You mean we need to go for lunch now??!!  So soon?!!!”

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…not before Ethan takes us for a drive in the antique car! 🙂

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Happy and contented passengers in the antique car ride.

 genting14 Lunch at Ming Ren “Lamb Specialty” Restaurant: Braised Lamb with Lotus Root (Yummy!)

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“No more pictures, please, Mommy!  I wanna go back to the Theme Park now!

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In Beryl’s Chocolate Wonderland.  Hannah is errr…making a getaway!

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In a land far far away…

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Spectacular view of Genting Highlands

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“Daddy, are you sure there are no dinosaurs around here?”

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Entrance to Dinosaurland

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Little Miss Pouty Lips

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What goes BUMP in the night?  Ethan having a go at the Junior Bumper Cars.

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All smiles as he got on the Ride de Paris in the Indoor Theme Park.

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And here’s one for the road!  Don’t we all look utterly satisfied with our buffet lunch at Coffee Terrace? 🙂