Growing Up

I look forward to going to daycare every weekday morning now.  When I wake up in the morning, I stretch and roll around on my bed till Mommy comes and coaxes me to get up.  Then I have my drink of milk.  Most of the time, Mommy will also give me a quick shower before dressing me up.  It’s rather chilly outside now, so I get to wear my long pants and sweats, which I personally think make me look cool. 

Sometimes while Daddy is having his breakfast, I will hijack some of his Frosties with milk too.  It’s yummilicious!  Then I’ll put on my jacket and shoes and head out the door. 

When we reach Aunty Van’s place, I like to stroll up the pathway to her apartment.  Sometimes I do a hop, skip and jump too!  Lately, I have been getting delicious pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast.  I love it loads, especially cos I get to eat together with my friends at daycare.

Sometimes Aunty Van would take a few pictures and that’s when I like to show how good I am at posing for the camera, see?

We do lots of stuff at daycare, like singing, dancing and even fun activities like bubble play and playing with the parachute!  We also do creative artwork every day, one of my favorites being the coloring sessions.  I bring home my art to show Mommy and Daddy every evening when I go home.

But it’s not just the fun we have indoors, we get to go outdoors too!  Aunty Van will take us all in a train buggy; we all get to ride in one buggy each, and we all need to remember to buckle ourselves up first.  Aunty Van takes us to the park, where there are play areas complete with a play structure and slides.  I love it outside, especially when the weather is just nice, not too hot and not too cold.

Daddy will be glad that the football training he has been giving me is not put to waste at daycare.  Why, just the other day, I got to show off my Zidane-like skills when we went to the park with the football.  Oh, over here in the US, I think they call it SOCCER.  But whatever it is, I still had tons of fun!

I’ve learnt a lot of new things at daycare, and I am definitely having a BLAST!  Sometimes when Daddy or Mommy comes to pick me up in the evenings, I am even reluctant to go home!

Ethan received many presents from many people before we left for the States.  Some we were able to ship together with our shipment, but some, unfortunately, we had really no space left in our bags since our shipment had already gone when we received them.

One of the bigger presents that made it in time for the shipment was this rather huge box containing a Matchbox toy ensemble.  It was a present from Ethan’s Kor-Kor, Aunty Pauline, who thought it was time our little boy was exposed to *macho* toys.  Well!

Anyway, when our shipment arrived in the States about a week and half after we did, Ethan was very excited when he saw the Matchbox box, and asked me to open it up for him.  In it was a castle, a dragon, a boulder and a brown truck, among others.

Ethan was EXHILARATED!  He was especially enthralled by the car/truck, and he kept saying, “Car! Car!” excitedly.  In fact, he was even willing to forgo his milk just to play with the car.

So when we saw a set of five other Matchbox vehicles on sale for less than USD5, we knew we just had to get it for him.  And got it we did.  The original truck/car that came with the toy set is the one at the far left.  And here’s Ethan’s very cool car collection now, including a helicopter which he loves to make it land on the castle tower.

Daddy even taught Ethan how to *play* with cars, complete with sound effects, and not surprisingly, Ethan followed suit.  In fact, Ethan is also asking us to “open” the doors of the cars, but unfortunately the ones he has do not have doors that can be opened.  We’ll put that on the list of things to buy though. 

But you know, I bet once we fix batteries on that castle ensemble, his grin will be even cheekier than this one!

One of our primary concerns when we relocated to the States was how Ethan would adapt to the change.  For one thing, Ethan is a very fussy eater, and we were worried if he would be able to accept the food here.  So we tried our best to make the transition as smooth sailing as possible. With the safe arrival of our FedEx food shipment, we were definitely relieved, because I could now cook dishes Ethan would enjoy, like tau-ewe-bak, chicken serai and claypot chicken rice.  However, my objective is still to have Ethan try out and love a variety of many other different foods. To make him more comfy in his new environment also, we brought along a little present for him from Malaysia.  And the morning after we arrived, I took it out and asked him to unwrap it.  Knowing how much he adores alphabets and numbers, we got him a set of colorful wooden blocks.  I tell you, just seeing his face light up with excitement was enough to make my day.

Well unfortunately, a few days later, he started throwing these blocks around the apartment.  I gave him a warning that I would take them away from him, but when he kept on throwing them, I stored the blocks away one day while he was asleep.  Looks like he doesn’t even miss them though. SIGH.

In the span of the past few weeks that we have been here, we have seen Ethan grow in leaps and bounds.  Not only has he become more sociable and vocal (and stubborn), he seems to have become more independent too.  For one thing, he loves to take his bath, and I attribute this to the bath tubs.  Oh, we got him some colorful foam alphabets and numbers to while his time away in the tub. Hehe.

And the first weekend we were here, we had a barbecue gathering by a nearby apartment poolside.  Ethan would only eat raisins and chips though, but he sure made a lot of new friends.

It definitely looks like our fears of Ethan having trouble adapting to life in the States are unfounded, because not only has he proven he’s a tough guy, he’s very resilient too.  In fact, when the weather’s chilly, Pete and I are feeling really cold, I feel Ethan’s hands and feet and he’s warm and cosy.

That’s my little man right there…  these pictures were taken a few days ago when we were out having a snack at In-N-Out.  The first picture was taken before the food came:

See how grouchy he looks?

And this second one is taken after the meal.  Ethan only had (a lot of) fries, but here’s his look of satisfaction as he enjoys his pink lemonade drink: