A Trip to the Airport!

Its been sometime since we last brought Le Xuan out beyond the usual walks downstairs. After some brainstorming, we decided that we'll bring her to the Airport! It was a big project as many of the logistical stuff have to be settled before going out. This includes preparing her meals and packing them into thermo-flask containers. We also had to work out the ideal timing so that she won't be cranky and sleepy before we're through with the Airport tour. Once we're all ready, we happily set off to the Airport. The trip there was pleasant enough as Le Xuan seemed to be pretty happy and excited.

Once we're at the Airport, our first stop was to the nursing room as Le Xuan had poo pooed. Following which, decided to have our lunch first at the foodcourt. Luckily, Por Por was around to feed Le Xuan her fish porridge while we tucked into our steamboat lunch. Le Xuan was finally able to eat together with us during meal time. After lunch, we embarked on our Airport Tour!

 As we walked past the main hall, Le Xuan was exhilarated to see a gigantic "windmill". It was actually a giant propeller on display, nevertheless, she wouldn't stop pointing and looking at the display. 

Por por also had the chance to take one of her rare photos with bao bao. Le Xuan was smiling so sweetly when we passed her the telephone at one of the phone booths.

We quickly grabbed some photos with Le Xuan as we make our way to the skytrain, which was our last stop for the day. We also saw that Le Xuan was starting to get tired and abit cranky. I think the ride on the skytrain was interesting enough as Le Xuan seemed fascinated by her surroundings. After the skytrain ride, we headed home after a tiring but absolutely enjoyable day trip with Le Xuan to the Airport. 

Le Xuan @ 11 months

Oh my gosh, just realised that it has been 2 months since I last posted an entry. Time really flies... Le Xuan is turning 1 year old very soon. Over the past 2 months, she has learnt how to crawl and also stand with support, which is another milestone in her development. She has also started calling ma ma and pa pa, but such responses are very much dependent on her mood for the day, hehe.

Diet wise, she is eating more fish nowadays. But it is a bit disheartening to see her developing diaper rash every time after she has eaten fish (due to the acidity I think). Oh, and I have started giving her baby bites too! Hehe something that I had been looking forward for the past few months, and it's so fun to see her biting the biscuit with that few little teeth.

Life has been quite different for me for the past 2 months, especially since I have started working. It was both physically and mentally tiring having to juggle with work and at the same time trying to cherish all the time I have with Le Xuan. I must say that I really treasure the short mornings we have together everyday before I set off to work.

A Morning At Sembawang park

Daddy is on leave this few days and we decided to bring Le Xuan somewhere further for her morning walk. After some deliberation, we decided to bring Le Xuan to Sembawang Park after her morning breakfast.

It was quite a hot day but thankfully we reached the park quite early before it gets too hot. We let Le Xuan stayed in her long sleeve pyjamas as we were afraid that she might get bitten by mozzies.




The park was quite big and we let Le Xuan remained in her pram at the start of the stroll. We also ventured to the seaside before Le Xuan got abit fiddly. That's when we had to take turns to carry her as we make our way back to the van.

It was a nice peaceful walk at Sembawang Park. Maybe we will look for other nice places to go for walks with Le Xuan.

Le Xuan goes for a swim, yeah!

Le Xuan is almost 9 months now, and we decided to bring her for a swim... again.  I could still remember very vividly that the first attempt, which was about 2 months ago, was a total failure.  Le Xuan was so traumatized that she cried uncontrollably until her face went all purple and filled with tears.  Coupled with her teething condition that time, she started having serious diarrhea the very next day which took almost 10 days to recover. This experience had left a very deep impression (or rather fear) in me. 

However, we thought it was about time for Le Xuan to have a second attempt soon, and prayed really hard that history would not repeat itself again. So... off to Jiujiu's house!  This time, I decided to go down to the pool with Le Xuan so as to give her a sense of security.  Woah, it's been a long time since I wore my swimming costume, hehe.

I started off letting Le Xuan feel the water with her little feet while I carried her in my arms.  It was a pleasant surprise when I saw her kicking the water happily. Given her positive response, I decided to let her go further down into the water but still hugging her closely so as to make sure that she was still fine. We proceed to the next step by letting Le Xuan try her new float.  Initially we got the float's orientation wrong, and Le Xuan looked scared on the topsy turvy float.  After getting the orientation right, Le Xuan looked happy kicking in the waters again.  However, this was shortlived as Le Xuan began to feel tired. 

Although the whole swimming experience took only about 10 - 15 minutes, I was very proud that Le Xuan had overcome her fear at her second swimming attempt.  After a hot bath at Jiujiu's house, she drank her milk and concussed immediately.  Haha guess it was quite a stressful experience for me that day, which explained why I was so tired after that =P  Looking forward to the next swimming lesson! :) 

2 months of weaning experience so far :)

Wow it's been 2 months since I started Le Xuan on solid food.  I was thinking it might be good to pen this experience down since it's a major step in Le Xuan's development...

I could still remember that we started Le Xuan on rice cereal when she was 6 months old.  It was quite interesting to see her expression back then when she first tasted something other than milk, hehe.  Besides rice cereal, we also bought a few jars of ready made food like carrots, squash and broccoli. However, it was disastrous when she started having fever, diarrhea and vomiting, and was diagnosed with stomach flu.  I was overwhelmed with guilt then and until now, we are not sure if it was due to the solid foods given. When Le Xuan recovered, we were very careful with her food and decided to prepare homemade food instead. However, my heart sank when Le Xuan fell sick again within a month's time, sigh... Her diarrhea was so serious that we had to visit the doctor twice and also consulted TCM.  Le Xuan only recovered after 2 weeks. However, we were pretty sure that it's due to teething instead of the food given.  Since then, I have been quite excited and reading up quite a bit on the new foods that we could introduce to Le Xuan :)

My cheeky princess smiling at the camera while having her meal :)

So far, our dear princess has tasted rice cereal, brown rice cereal, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, porridge, tofu, green vegetable and apples! It feels wonderful to see Le Xuan enjoying her food and I'll be introducing her to something new tomorrow, i.e sweet corn and avocado!!  Hope she'll like it! =P Hehe, can't wait to feed her other foods like spinach, pear, threadfin and codfish :) 

Science Centre....Here we go!

This is a day we had been waiting for... Pixar Exhibition at Science Centre!!  Dear dear, me, Bro and Xiaojia decided to bring Le Xuan along for our excursion.  As usual, our time revolved around Le Xuan's schedule and we had to wait for her to finish her breakfast (with the rest of us going all pale and hungry) before making our way down to Science Centre at about 10.45am. The journey seemed extremely long when we were abit lost and Le Xuan got cranky and sleepy.  Luckily, Le Xuan managed to fall asleep in my arms and continued napping when we reached Science Centre's Macdonald for our Brunch.

Sleepy Le Xuan and Daddy at Science Centre

The feeling was great when Le Xuan took such a long nap and woke up only after we bought the tickets.  We proceed straight to the Pixar Exhibition hall.  Unfortunately, the exhibition turned out to be a disappointment.  We had expected more interactive showcases instead of an "art gallery" style display.  Before long, our baobei Le Xuan was hungry again and it was time for her milk.  Bro had a nickname for that day called Mario  as he was our maid.  He had to help carry Le Xuan's bag, pram and dear's camera bag, wahahaha  =P and that made Xiaojia a Bangla as most maids typically have Banglas as their boyfriends, hahahhaa.

Mario and Bangla :)

Before we made our way back to the Science Centre, dear dear, me and Le Xuan took a nice family photo with Monstor Inc.

Nice family Pic :) 

Just the two of us :) 

Although we all agreed that the Science Centre was much more interesting than the Pixar Exhibition, none of us really got to explore and learn as we were busy handling little Le Xuan most of the time.  Instead of sitting happily in her pram, she would want us to carry her around.  So poor dear dear, me and Xiaojia had to take turns carrying this squirmy 8.5kg baby.

By around 3.45pm, all four adults's energy had hit an all time low while Le Xuan was so refreshed after her little nap. We decided to drop by a nearby coffeeshop for late lunch before making our way home.  Bro and Xiaojia were in screensaver mode on the way back, while I continued to entertain Le Xuan despite feeling exhausted as well.  It felt so wonderful when we reached home to see mum, our saviour =P. So Le Xuan is back to the tender love and care of por por, while the rest could finally REST!  =D

Its Father's Day!!

We decided to celebrate Father's day one day earlier..and its daddy's first father's day! We wanted to bring Le Xuan out for breakfast with us, so we decided to bring our little family out for breakfast at Causeway Point's Swensons. We woke up pretty early and had Le Xuan all changed and ready to go gai gai with mummy and daddy. We quickly posed for a family photo before setting off for our Father's Day outing to Swensons!

As we were waiting for our food to arrive, mummy and daddy took turns to snap photos with Le Xuan. Mummy and Daddy also took a nice da tou zao.

While we were having our sumptuous breakfast of pancakes and omelets, Le Xuan was happily reading and playing with her favourite book. Thankfully she was quite cooperative the whole morning and even took a nap by herself while we were having our breakfast!

As we were leaving Swensons, there was a standee of Buzz Lightyear for the promotion of Toy Story 3. We couldn't resist posing Le Xuan for a photo. Although her face was abit small, we think she still makes a very adorable Buzz Lightyear. 

And that concludes our simple but happy and enjoyable Father's Day celebrations!

Dinner @ Northpoint

Dear and I had wanted to bring Le Xuan to IMM @ Jurong that evening.  As dear was out the entire afternoon, we decided to go somewhere nearer so that he would not be too tired. 

Le Xuan was in quite a good mood when we brought her out, but began to get abit cranky when we reached northpoint as it was time for milk.  We decided to have our dinner @ Manhattan Fish Market.  Oops there was quite a long queue and I had to prepare Le Xuan's milk while queuing. This was rather challenging and I spilled some milk powder on the floor =P .. Poor dear dear had to bend down as Le Xuan had to drink her milk in her pram. 

Finally, we got ourselves a seat and took our order. As we knew that Le Xuan would get restless easily while sitting in her stationary pram, our strategy was to play with her first before placing her in her pram when the food arrived. With her favourite storybook around, dear and I enjoyed our dinner while Le Xuan was busy 'tasting' her storybook. However, this was shortlived as Le Xuan got bored and started screaming!! Oh boy, this was so embarrassing!  We had to finish our food asap and dear had to carry her while drinking his lemon tea, hehe.  

By the time we left the restaurant, it was rather late and we could sense Le  Xuan's sleepiness. Dear and I decided to walk around just for a short while before we made our way back home. It was a short but lovely family outing :) 

An evening walk at Woodlands Waterfront

Daddy was on half day off today, so we decided to make a trip to the newly opened Woodlands Waterfront before dinner! We waited for Le Xuan to take her afternoon nap before setting off. When we arrived, there were already quite a number of people there, especially considering that its a newly opened park. The weather was quite hot, but luckily there was quite a breeze as we ventured out to the jetty.

You can get quite a good view of the buildings across Johor Bahru from the jetty. The place kind of reminded us of the Fisherman's Pier at Dan Shui, Taiwan. Nice!

Daddy hugging Le Xuan for a quick photo before we come back

Le Xuan got abit sweaty and cranky as we're reaching the end of the jetty. Its time to head home for dinner! Maybe we'll come back again for more another day! 

Trip to IKEA!

It's Saturday morning and we decided to bring Le Xuan to IKEA @ Tampines!  It was actually her Jiu Jiu's idea as he wanted to go IKEA to shop for swivel chairs.  To our surprise, Le Xuan was so happy when we reached IKEA, especially when she was seated on the high chair at the cafe. It really melts my heart when I see Le Xuan so happy :) 

After a late but sumptuous breakfast at IKEA, we decided to start shopping! Haha we seemed to have forgotten our main objective and zoomed in at the children's section instead, amusing Le Xuan (or ourselves) with the cute little toys.  Le Xuan was enjoying herself while we pushed her around in her pram.  However she started to get restless after sometime as it was time for her nap.  And this was made worse when she had hiccups which made her even more irritated.  To get rid of her hiccups, we made our way to the baby care room and gave her some water.  No more hiccups and the little princess was more appeased.

In order to make payment for our items, we had to go downstairs.  Instead of looking around excitedly with curiosity, Le Xuan was too tired and fell asleep on my shoulder. Her daddy  and Jiu Jiu were so amused and started taking some shots of her.  Haha I must say this little princess of mine is really getting heavier each day.  It was about 2.30pm when we left and bro drove us back home, just in time for Le Xuan's next feed.  It was indeed a tiring but definitely enjoyable day @ IKEA  :)

Mother's Day Breakfast!

It's Mother's Day! A very special day for me since I'm now a mummy! :)  Dear suggested going to Northpoint Swensons for breakfast, haha but we didn't make it in time, and went to Long John Silvers instead.  I was not a least disappointed. In fact, I was really happy that we could spend time together as a family, just dear dear, me and baobei Le Xuan. :) 

Little did I expect Le Xuan to show off her new skill so soon, that is, SCREAM!! According to my plan, Le Xuan was to sit quietly in her pram and watch daddy mummy eat before she has a milk milk. However, our food must have whet her appetite and she started screaming in Long John Silvers! That left me with no choice but to feed her before I enjoyed my meal again. Haha but I was happy to see her so satisfied and smiley after her milk.  Thereafter, when we were in Popular bookstore, I smelled something familiar, a pungent smell. Yes, Le Xuan has poo poo-ed! We were so glad that Northpoint has a nursing room for us to get Le Xuan cleaned up, and we met a friendly caucasian family too :) 

It was a lovely and memorable afternoon for me. Haha but the three of us were so tired that we concussed for an hour on our comfy bed once we reached home =P

Le Xuan going for her baby spa

Its the eve of Mother's Day and we decided to bring our dear Le Xuan for a "baby spa" at her Jiu Jiu's place. There's a nice big bath tub for Le Xuan to have a nice warm dip. Of course, one of our main worries was that Le Xuan might poo poo in the pool...so we even went to get some disposable waterproof diapers! Courtesy of huggies. :)  

Posing for a family photo before the dip! Pappy has the honours of going into the tub with little Le Xuan. Le Xuan still looking abit apprehensive here...little does she know what lies ahead of her! ;) 

Le Xuan still looking quite gleeful...all ready for her dip! 

Ah hah! We're finally in the tub! Le Xuan initially seemed to be enjoying herself quite abit, as she managed to get her feet floating and even kicked some waves! But it wasn't long before she started to cry...maybe she's just tired or abit scared. After less than 10 minutes, we decided to call it a day for Le Xuan first "baby spa" at her Jiu Jiu's place. Perhaps we'll come back for more another day...afterall we still have 11 disposable waterproof diapers left! ;) 

Posing for a photo with Mummy!

Nice!

Captivated by Baby TV!

We just found out Le Xuan's love for TV a few weeks back. That was when we saw how she was enjoying the Disney's channel. Her favourite friends of Disney include Winnie the pooh, tigger and Mickey Mouse! Thanks to SCV's free channel viewing, Le Xuan now has a new found love for another channel...Baby TV! I think she likes it cause there's more songs and colour in the programmes.

Now the big question is...should we subscribe to it..since the free viewing has ended? Of course, i also think that kids shouldn't watch too much TV...its bad for their eyes. But it does serve as a good distraction to keep the baby busy at times. :) 

Le Xuan running away from Pappy

Not looking too happy...lol

First week with the walker!

Le Xuan loves her walker! :)

Royston and I simply love Le Xuan's smile in this photo. In fact, Le Xuan looks more like she's laughing! The purpose of buying this walker is not only to aid Le Xuan in her walking, but also for our sanity =P With one more activity for her, she would be more occupied and this would mean less weight lifting for the rest of us!

During her first week on the walker, I was stunned that she could only move backwards. She would also stop in front of the TV to watch her favourite Disney Playhouse channel, especially if it's showing Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh. Although Le Xuan has not really mastered the correct way of using the walker, we could see that she was enjoying herself, discovering the different corners of the house. But as usual, each activity can barely last her 20 minutes. This means papa, mama, por por or gong gong has to carry her again! Tsk tsk.

First Post

Our family photo :) 

This family photo was taken when Le Xuan was almost 3 months old, and that was the first day of the Lunar New Year 2010. Come to think it, it was Valentine's Day too.  To many people, a family photo is nothing special. But I believe a lot of first time fathers and mothers would share the same sentiment as me... i.e. it's so hard to take a family photo together! The photo permutations are usually mummy & baby, daddy & baby, or baby only.  

This is also the first year Le Xuan is receiving ang baos! Royston and I have decided to open a savings account for Le Xuan, where her ang bao money will be deposited every year :) When she grows up, it is important for her to inculcate the habit of savings and I believe her daddy will be more than happy to teach her all about financial planning. Am I right, Le Xuan's daddy?  :P