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Growing Up

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buy this buy that

May 9, 2009 in Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up | 4 comments

 
Scrap Credits
Daydreamin’ kit (papers, elements & alphas) from Megan Turnidge
Word Art (I Treasure You) from Dirty Feet Designs aka Heather Benson

Lately Ethan added the word “buy” to his ever-expanding vocabulary.  Actually I don’t even remember when it had started, but he understands the concept of buying stuff now.

Ethan: Mommy, I wanna watch vi-dee-lio (video)!
Mommy: Which video do you wanna watch?
Ethan: Ummm…ummm…Madagascar!
Mommy, But we don’t have the Madagascar DVD darlin’…you wanna watch something else?
Ethan: BUY Madagascar!!
Mommy: Ok, we’ll see if it’s on sale this weekend, okay?
Ethan: Okay Mom!

Mommy: Alright Ethan, go get your jacket and wear your shoes and socks!
Ethan: I wanna wear purple socks!
Mommy: You don’t have any purple socks, my dear…how about your green ones?
Ethan: BUY purple socks!

There’s Ethan’s very simple solution to get anything he wants! 🙂

And then just the other day…

Ethan: Mommmeeee….I wanna drink milk!
Mommy: Okay Mommy’ll get some for you.  Which milk do you want? (I’d expected him to choose between chocolate milk, his Pediasure or soy milk)
Ethan: I want green milk!
Mommy: Green milk??!!  There’s no such thing as green milk, Ethan!
Ethan: Errmmm…BUY green milk!

It will take some time before he realizes not everything can be bought!

The things Ethan says to Hannah

May 4, 2009 in Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up, Hannah | 6 comments

 
Scrap Credits
NSD 2009 freebie template from Jen Caputo
Without End – partie 1 kit from Scrapmalin
Rough & Tumble Add On paper tear from Flergs
Worn Alpha from Bethany

  • “Hi Hannah!”  It’s very endearing to see Ethan going up to Hannah when he wakes up or when he comes back from daycare and greet her that way.  Sometimes he will add in, “How are you, Hannah?” or “I love you Hannah” or “What you doin’, Hannah?”
  • “Hannah, wake up!”
  • When Hannah starts to cry when we are out in the car, Ethan will respond with, “Oh Hannah, don’t cry…we’re moving!”  You see, Hannah, just like her brother when he was small, loves it when the car is moving, and as soon as we stop at traffic lights or an intersection, she will start to cry.  Sometimes we would reassure Hannah by telling her that we are moving soon and tell her not to cry, so I suppose Ethan, in his own amazing intuitive ways, caught on. 
  • “Sit down, Hannah!” , while pointing to the couch.
  • “Eat, Hannah!”, offering Hannah his milk or yogurt. 
  • When Hannah starts crying and wants to be fed or carried, Ethan will go up to her and say, “Oh, it’s okay Hannah, … don’t cry!”  When we ask Ethan to give Hannah a kiss, sometimes he will touch his forehead to her head.
  • “Here, Hannah…pull it!”, offering the musical mobile toy to Hannah, and then “Touch it!” while he holds Hannah’s hand to the toy.  Just the other day, Ethan took his yellow Numbers book and put Hannah’s hand in such a way as to hold the book.

***

And when he wants Mommy’s or Daddy’s attention on him, when either one of us is carrying Hannah, he will say “Put Hannah cot!”  He puts a lot of emphasis on the “T” after the “Put” so much so that it sounds like he said, “Put THE Hannah cot!”

Oh, by the way, Ethan pronounces Hannah as “HA-NA”, and not “Hen-NA” like us.  It’s just so adorable the way he says it!  And I bet those things he says to her right now are all just the tip of the iceberg with many many more to come as they both grow up!

Mr Manners

April 25, 2009 in Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up | 4 comments

Scrap Credits
Spring Blossoms QP from Bon Scrapatit Designs
Elegant word art (little moments) from Bethany
Without End – partie 1 (papier 04) from Scrapmalin

Ethan is getting very good at being polite now.  He says Please and Thank You at the right times.  When he does something wrong, he will look very sad, apologize and say, “Sorry Mommy” or “Sorry Daddy“.

He even says Good night and Good morning!  … although these depend on his mood.

I remember a funny incident when he asked me for some chocolate.  We would tell him that he can have just ONE Hershey’s Nugget on condition that he has finished his dinner.

Ethan (opening the fridge): Mommy, I want chocolate.
Me: Okay, since you have finished your dinner today, Mommy will give you one piece of chocolate.
Ethan (smiling happily): Chocolate!
Me: Here you go…what must you say, Ethan? (I was expecting him to say “Please”)
Ethan (without skipping a heartbeat): CHOCOLATE!
Me: No… you must say, PLEASE..
Ethan: Please Mommy…
Me: Okay, here you go…now what must you say?
Ethan: Thank you Mommy!

Now, the Please and Thank You come naturally 🙂

Lately, he has also learnt how to say “Excuse me“, but sometimes it sounds like he is saying “Kiss me“!!  And yet, sometimes when someone or something is blocking his way, he forgets his manners and says, “MOVE!!!”

… well, sometimes he does remember to say, “PLEASE MOVE!” 🙂

Fi(r)st Discovery

April 24, 2009 in Growing Up, Hannah | No comments

Scrap Credits
Captured QP  from My Life And Scrap
About girl butterflies  from Elisja Design
Magnetic Poetry pieces from Digi-Designs by Nicole

As my little Hannah grows day by day, she’s starting to explore and discover more things.  When I change her on the changing table, her favorite stance is to grab one of the little vertical bars on the table.  And her grip is really tight too!

Another thing she has discovered recently is her fist.  In her exercising and stretching sessions, she would inadvertently find her fist in her mouth, and she would then suck on it fervently!

Fist first, then toes next? 😛

She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister

April 17, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 9 comments

Maybe he just wants to join in the crowd…
Ethan has been requesting to carry Hannah on his own nowadays. He would make his request with both his arms outstretched.

I’d allow him to carry Hannah with her head on his lap and him sitting on the couch. I feel it is important to let Ethan know that he plays an important role as a big brother. Maybe this makes him FEEL like a big brother.

But one thing’s for sure…they look so adorable together, don’t they?

Milk, milk and more milk!

March 31, 2009 in Breastfeeding, Growing Up, Hannah | 4 comments

 
Scrap Credits
Strawberry Farms QP from Raspberry Road Designs
Moody Grunge Alphas from Mel Hains Designs

Phew!  We just made it past Hannah’s second growth spurt!  According to baby books and experts, an infant experiences growth spurts at certain periods during the first year of life and the approximate times are:

  • 7-10 days
  • 3 weeks
  • 6 weeks
  • 3 months
  • 4 months
  • 6 months
  • 9 months

During these growth spurts, the baby’s appetite will increase, and a typical sign of a growth spurt is something called cluster feedings, i.e. when baby nurses several times close together, sometimes even in an hour or two!  Hannah’s first growth spurt went by almost unnoticed, because she was still settling into her feeding and sleep pattern then, but just as I thought it was getting easier, she hit her second growth spurt about a week ago, and the LONG nights began.

In addition to waking up several times in the middle of the night, I had to remind myself to burp her properly after every feed and prop her body up at an angle after that.  You see, Hannah has a slight case of Gastroesophageal Reflux (GER), and would sometimes throw up a little bit of milk.  The first time she did that, I panicked, not because I didn’t know babies did that, but because it never happened to Ethan; that boy kept everything down!  I remembered I just had to feed him, and burp or no burp, he would be okay after that.  Maybe girls are more high maintenance…hehehe…

In any case, breastfeeding definitely helps an infant with GER, and I hope she’ll feel much better soon.

Oh, and she prefers to be burped over the shoulder!  Doesn’t like the sitting and burping position…

Well anyway, I am glad we are nearing the end of this growth spurt…for one thing, it has certainly made our girl look more *bulat* by the day!  She is fast growing out of her 0-3months clothes too!

Doing the Math

March 26, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 6 comments

 

Just the other evening, while we were relaxing in front of the TV, Ethan suddenly brought his yellow Numbers book and said it was for Hannah.  You see, Ethan has four favorite board books: the red Animals book, the blue ABC book, the green Words book and the yellow Numbers book.  All this time, he has self-assigned the red book for himself, the blue book for Mommy and the green book for Daddy.  The yellow book was unassigned till that day.

Anyway, I then asked Ethan to read to Hannah.  And so he did.

 

He flipped to the addition and subtraction page in the board book, and started pointing and read aloud to his sister. 

He goes, “Five plus Five equals TEN!” and “Four plus Six equals TEN!”

He doesn’t say the word “minus” though, so he goes, “Three Two equals ONE!”  🙂

Those priceless expressions

March 25, 2009 in Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 8 comments

Scrap Credits
May Morn paper from Carjazi Designs
Elegant word art (a daughter is) from Bethany
Stamp cluster 8 (modified) from Lindsay Jane Designs
Boxed words from Chantal

In the past three weeks since Hannah came into our lives, I have been getting to know her based on her facial expressions:

  • She frowns and purses her lips when she is about to do a poop.
  • She smiles and sometimes giggles when she sees something she likes.  Once she was fussing and crying, and as soon as I picked her up, she smiled at me as if to say, “Yay! Mission accomplished!”
  • She raises her eyebrows, causing her forehead to crease after every feed.  And she does this while stretching her entire body, in a satisfied manner.
  • She looks at us with those gorgeous big brown eyes, as if she understands every word we say.
  • She cries when she is hungry.
  • She screams and wails when she is wet or needs a change, and brings the roof down when I am just a wee bit slow in getting the whole process done.
  • ..and of course, she lets out a YAWN when she is sleepy and tired.

I’m gonna be a GREAT big brother!

March 24, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | 5 comments

Credits
Word Art  from DigiDesigns by Denise

Ethan has been lovingly executing his brotherly duties, thus far, and these include:

  • Stroking Hannah’s head and hair in a loving manner…well, sometimes I need to remind him to be gentle, because he could get carried away and be a little rough.
  • Pulling the musical toy in the infant-to-toddler rocker that he once used and is now being used by Hannah.
  • Helping me change Hannah by passing me her diaper and clothes when I ask for them.
  • Imitating Hannah’s cries to the tee.  This started the first day Hannah and I came home.

    •  

  • Climbing up on the side of Hannah’s cot and saying “Hi Hannah!” or “Hannah, good night!”, and sometimes when Hannah is crying, he would go over to her cot and say, “Hannah, it’s okay…”
  • Asking Daddy to carry Hannah whenever he wants Mommy to carry him…well okay, not very brotherly, but still at least he wants to make sure Hannah is carried.  Sometimes though, he just asks me to put Hannah in the cot when he wants me to carry him.
  • When Ethan sees someone else cuddling Hannah, he will come over to me and say, “Mommy carry”, asking me to carry him.
  • …and of course, not forgetting…”serenading” Hannah to sleep with his mega-decibel rendition of “ABC” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or some other new song he just learnt.

    •  

    We went to the doctor’s

    March 23, 2009 in Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones, Parenting | 4 comments

    Last week, we brought Ethan and Hannah for a routine pediatrician checkup; Ethan had his 3-year-old checkup, while Hannah had her 2-week checkup done.

     

    Ethan was very cooperative.  He happily undressed and put on a very cute hospital gown, and stayed very still while his blood pressure was taken, his eyes, ears and throat was checked, and he was very well-behaved too as Hannah was being checked. 

    Ethan’s height: 3′ (0.914m)

    Ethan’s weight: 28lb (12.701kilos)

    The doctor assessed Ethan and we were VERY amazed that Ethan could draw a CIRCLE when the doctor asked him to!  Isn’t that spectacular? 🙂

    Anyway, the doctor required that Ethan take a Tuberculin skin test and an anemia test.  The anemia test is a simple finger prick test, and we were given the results immediately: Ethan is not anemic.  As for the Tuberculin skin test, we had to return 48-72 hours later to obtain the results.  The Tuberculin skin test (also known as the Mantoux test) involved injecting a little bit of Tuberculin into the skin layer of Ethan’s forearm and observing the reaction. 

    Our poor boy of course wailed and cried when both the Tuberculin test and anemia test was done.  Not even stickers would pacify him. 

    The doctor also prescribed fluoride tablets for Ethan, given that the tap water in the area we live in does not contain fluoride.  Ethan calls it his “circle” vitamins now, and thankfully, he happily takes one a day (they are grape flavored!)

    Anyway, back to the Tuberculin test…we returned to the hospital 2 days later for the reading, and it was positive.  Of course, Pete and I think it is possibly due to the fact that Ethan had his BCG vaccination at birth.  Kids born in the US do NOT have the BCG vaccination and they take the Tuberculin skin test to test if they had been exposed to the TB bacteria.  Now because Ethan tested positive for the skin test, as a routine protocol, we had to get a chest x-ray done on him to ensure he did not have the active TB bacteria in him.

    Two days after the chest x-ray, the doctor called to let me know that the x-ray was fine and Ethan did not have an active TB disease in him.  However, the doctors here are worried that the TB bacteria could lie dormant in the child’s body, as in latent tuberculosis,  and recommended Ethan go on a 9-month medication. 

    Pete and I are declining this because it is very certain that Ethan’s initial positive skin test result is due to his BCG vaccination.  Furthermore, Ethan will definitely NOT like to be on medication for such a long duration and also we would be headed for home in about 4 months’ time.

    In any case, we learnt a few new things from this experience, but what is confusing is…the BCG vaccine is not a 100% fullproof prevention of the TB disease.  If this is so, why are babies in Malaysia being vaccinated at birth?  Why can’t they do away with the vaccine and perform the skin test instead?

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