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Little Miracles · Our Blessings from God…
Bible Verse of the Day

bravehannah1

I have no doubt in my mind that Hannah will grow up to be a very brave and determined young lady.  From the way she carries herself, to the way she puts her foot down (stubborn nonetheless) when she wants something, she’s certainly turning out to be one courageous girl.

A couple of months back, when she had completed her 3-month-long iron therapy, her doctor requested that Hannah had her blood test done again so that we could ensure her Serum Ferritin count was in the acceptable range.  I was worried when I was told that the blood to be tested would be drawn from the inner crook of Hannah’s elbow.  The could be traumatizing for a child as young as Hannah.

But we had to do it anyway.

I took her to the lab in the hospital, and sat her on my lap.  I told Hannah that it would only take a while and then it would all be over.  The lab person came over and strapped Hannah’s arm, and then tried to locate her vein.  After a few seconds, she asked me to switch to the other arm.  And she tried to find the vein again.  Again…nothing.

I was beginning to get irritated, because the delay would cause anxiety in a young child.  But I held my own and patiently waited while the first lab person asked a senior lab person (I think) to look for the vein in the first arm.

Thankfully, they found it!  The senior lab person applied some alcohol on the inner crook of Hannah’s elbow, then inserted a needle to draw the blood.  Hannah winced a little while the needle was inserted, but she didn’t cry AT ALL.  I kissed her head and comforted her.  It certainly helped that I didn’t get weak in the knees or anything, because I am a blood donor and I was used to seeing needles inserted into arms.

Anyway, the whole process was over in about a minute or so, and Hannah did not shed a single tear!  We were all so proud of her!  She was such a brave little girl, and she definitely won the hearts of everyone in the lab that day.

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Fast forward to a week later, Hannah fell sick and had to have another blood test done again.  This time she laid down on the bed and they took the blood from the other hand.  She only cried a little when the needle was inserted, and that was it.

Courage: nothing can beat that that is inherent in my little girl.  She might be little, but she’s a mighty brave girl with a heart of a lion 🙂

Many many moons ago, our visits to the malls were only for shopping, movie-watching and (sometimes) eating.  Now, with kids, our trips to malls are for (mostly) window-shopping, eating and, more often than not, include visits to certain *sections* in the malls where the kids can have a go at the rides.

Here are some shots this blogger-mommy managed to snap whilst my kids were having fun.

Hannah *driving* a red car next to Mr Bear:

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My kids LOVE the little merry-go-round.  Ethan loves to high-five us as he goes around and around…look how cheeky my boy looks!

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And Hannah’s favorite is the purple horsy.  I think it’s so adorable the way she hold’s the horsy’s ears, instead of the handles provided!

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There are also some rides where both Ethan and Hannah get to ride together, like in this red convertible.  Here’s a short video I managed to take:

 

Ethan and Hannah have also enjoyed driving their own kiddy cars…see how cool they look?

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Ethan had a go with the go-kart car, and Hannah got into a car that could be controlled remotely, by, who else but, Daddy! (by the way, the band-aid on Hannah’s forehead was because she had a small ouchie when she fell and hit her head on the cabinet earlier that day).

 

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Ethan: Mommy, I want new babies!
Mommy: Huh? What do you mean?
Ethan: Mommy, I want 5 new babies; 2 more baby girls and 3 baby boys!
Mommy: And how are we getting those new babies, Ethan?
Ethan: Buy them Mommy!
Mommy: Buy the babies?  Where do we go to buy babies?
Ethan: At the Baby Shop, Mommy!  The same place we got Hannah from!

Who doesn’t like desserts, eh?  When we dine out, if the kids are behaving well at the dining table, we occasionally indulge in a serving of dessert at the end of our meal.  The dessert is shared, because the serving is often way too big for just one person, and also because we do not want the kids to be super-hyper-sugar-charged afterward.

This here is the delicious scrumptious Molten Chocolate Cake we ordered from Chilli’s.  It’s warm chocolate cake at the bottom, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzled with yummy chocolate sauce at the top.

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In any case, we’ve discovered that these special dessert time moments are awesome family time moments too.  Look how happy the kids are…

Ethan loves it…

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…and so does Hannah (see how she’s giving a “thumbs up”?)

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We also love the simple pleasures of the sundae cone from McDonald’s:

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You know that distinctable starting sound of that Glee song “Don’t Stop Believing”?  Yes, the part at the beginning when the cast of Glee sings, “Da-da-da-da-da…..”?

Well, this is what Hannah does whenever she hears this song, be it on the radio, on the TV, or when we play the CD..

 

…and errr… the last bit of that video is just Ethan trying to get part of himself into the shot. LOL

When Ethan was much younger, he loved dogs.  In fact, his close encounter with a golden retriever was a really fun and loving one.

But somewhere along the line, he began to have a fear of dogs.  We would be taking our walks in the park when we were in the States and he would scream, “Aaaaahhhh!!! Dog!!!!” and run away or hide behind us.

So a few weekends ago, when we were vacationing in KL and decided to pay his Aunty Adelle a visit, we were bracing ourselves for some major screaming.  Adelle has a labrador and we figured Ethan would be afraid.

But we were so wrong…!!!

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Look at how well they got along together…in fact, I think the lab (Hazy) was a bit scared of him for following her all around the house.  Even Hannah was not afraid of the dog.

When we asked Ethan why he wasn’t afraid of the dog, he said, “Because it’s a friendly doggie, Mommy.  It’s not a barking one!”

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hannah_18monthsScrap Credits
Plentiful Kit from Shabby Princess Designs
Elegant word art (she’s adorable) from Bethany

Weight

11.2 kilos

Height/Length

81cm, roughly a head shorter than Ethan.

Teeth

8 incisors (4 top and 4 bottom), with a few more teeth appearing at the back, possibly pramolars. 

Hannah has me brushing her teeth every day.  We try to do it twice a day, morning and night.  And whenever she hears me saying, “Let’s go and brush our teeth!”, she’ll open her mouth, say “Aaah!” and point to her teeth.  Yeah, she’s cute like that. 🙂

I’m brushing her teeth with a fluoride-free kids’ toothpaste, and we started with gargle-training using a cup with boiled drinking water (just in case she swallows and drinks it).  After about a week, Hannah can now spit out the water (still working on the gargling), so sometimes I just use tap water.

Motor Skills

  • Hannah loves to stomp around and shake her booty to music.  Once we were in the mall and were walking past a music store which started to play some music.  She stopped and started dancing, then fell over backwards!
  • She prefers to sit on a chair for her meals and playtime.  We need to find somewhere to store our baby chair now.
  • At the restaurants, when she is supposed to be in a baby high chair, she will not sit still, preferring instead to walk around and explore the surrounding areas.
  • She could form the thumbs up sign with one hand a couple of months back.

Communication and Social Skills

  • Hannah has learnt many new words: “Ko-ko” (for “Ethan Ko-ko”), “Bear”, “Beh” (bag), “Mau” (mouth), “No no no” (I’ve been saying this WAY too much!), “ball”, “boo” (for “book”), “daw” (for “dog”), “burr” (for “bird”), “nana” (for “banana”), “rai” (for “rice”), “nai” (f0r “nice”), “up”, “down”, “pee pee”, “poo poo”, “eye” (for “ice”), “eye” (for “hi!) and “buh-bye”.
  • In Hokkien, she can say “moi” for “porridge” 🙂
  • She is also very expressive and giggles a lot.  She goes “mmmm” when she tastes something good.
  • She has managed to tell me when she wants to go “poo poo” a few times and we have successfully completed the exercise several times too.  Still working on the pee pee. 🙂
  • She’s very loving, and loves to hug us all.

Food and Feeding

Hannah eats almost everything we eat now, with the exception of herbal stuff which we don’t know the contents of and food high in sugar and salt content.  She eats porridge on weekdays and mostly rice and noodles during the weekends.

As for milk, Hannah is still on 100% breast milk, with a little sampling here and there of chocolate milk and fresh milk.

She took a little bit of porridge with some peanuts in it (she just took the porridge part), and the following day, she had some rashes on her body and face.  Not sure if she’s allergic to the peanuts though, but we’re keeping a close eye.

table

We should have done this a long time ago…but we had always thought the Green Mamut table from Ikea would not be able to fit into our trunk. 

We took the risk anyways, and were surprised to find out that it fits!

So the kids now have a new table.  They use it for just about anything under the sun: for their activities, for the coloring and drawing, for their meals…and errmmm…for climbing on too!  Sometimes Daddy and Mommy will join them at the table for their meals as well (we get that Japanese vibe cuz the table is lower).

Ethan loves the table because he can do almost anything there, and Hannah loves it because she does not need to be strapped into the high chair for her meals now.   I love it because it’s round and has absolutely no sharp edges (and also because crayon and pencil marks wash off super easy!)

The green table has taken over the place of our dark brown side table in the living room, making the room brighter and more cheerful.

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We should actually be counting our blessings that the phase had lasted this long.  For after 18 months of sitting in the stroller when we’re about to go out, pushing Hannah all the way in the stroller to the car and then loading her in the car and unloading her back onto the stroller when we get back home, Hannah finally decided to *put her foot down* and now refuses to get into the stroller when we are going out.

It started with her in the infant carrier, where all I needed to do was carry her in the carrier and place it in the carrier base in the car.  Then when she outgrew the carrier, I pushed her in the stroller and loaded her into the car seat in the car.  Sometimes she would refuse, but we’ve always managed to get her into the stroller with the lure of a toy or a book.  The use of the stroller has made it so much easier to handle both kids, especially when we have other stuff to carry.

Not anymore though.

Now she wants to walk with us all the way to the car.  So now I have both my hands full, one hand holding Ethan and the other holding Hannah.  She also insists on slinging her bag whenever she walks.  Looks like I will not be able to carry a lot of other things with me now.

And the picture above was taken just yesterday, just after we had parked our car and were preparing to go upstairs.  Don’t they look happy and cheeky at the same time?

I ran out of videos to show the kids the other day, so I finally decided to show them the song segments from The Sound of Music DVD.  After a couple of times watching the Do-Re-Mi portion, Ethan started singing the song over and over again…in a style that is all his own…

I recorded this while we were waiting for our food in a restaurant .. here is his version, albeit a little cut short.. LOL

 

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