Natalie's "Reading" @ 2y7m

Eunice has been bringing back some take-home books from school this week. It's her "homework" to learn how to read. Those are simple books with pictures, so most of the time the child will be looking at the picture to predict the words. It's pretty easy for Eunice, even Nat can "read" them. But I tried to get Eunice to recognize the words.

Every night when I try to teach Eunice, Nat will be around and said she wants to read too. So I let her after Eunice finishes reading. I took 2 videos of her reading and couldn't resist to post it up. She's such a drama queen and such a cutie busy body!

No, she can't read. She's just reading from memory or by looking at the pictures in the book. :)

Natalie's Growing Diary

Finally, I found time to sort out Nat's growing diary. Blame it on smart phones now. So easy to take pictures but so hard to download or sort them. :)

Can't imagine how fast my baby grows. She's a toddler now. Looking back her baby pictures give me fuzzy feeling inside me. Time is going too fast. I am pretty sure I'll be the no.1 reader for this page, just like what I did for Eunice's growing diary.

Nat's 2nd Birthday

So.. It was Nat's 2nd birthday exactly a month ago. :)

In her first year, she was such an easy and contented baby. Many have told me that she has a cheeky face and asked me to watch out. True enough, Nat is a total opposite girl with her sister Eunice. She's much more active, more independent, and naughtier! She kept me really really busy as she just couldn't stop playing, running, throwing things, etc. I don't really dare to leave my eyes from her for long, not knowing what she's up to. And we realised, she can't walk - she runs! And she can't talk properly - she SHOUTS! :P

There's once she was really quiet while I was working. And when I realised something wasn't very right, and when I went to check on her, she has scribbled her whole hand with the ink pens. Great! Sometimes, she scribbled Eunice's books. Very often EG said, those books used by Eunice for 4-5 years and are still in superb condition but when Nat touches it, in less than a day it'll be all gone. She has torn many books, scribbled many pages, and spoilt some of the toys too.

For solid, she's eating REALLY REALLY well.. I don't really have problem having her not eating (except if she's not well). HOWEVER, (the sigh part...) she doens't like to eat vegetable. She hates carrots especially. I think those vegetables that she'd eat probably is only broccoli, peas, cauliflowers, and corn (is it considered vegetable?).... Can't think of anything else. However, she's great in eating fruits. So many times I just comfort myself that it's ok, she's still getting the fibre from the fruits.

My family has always been wanting to visit me and they took the opportunity to come and visit us just before Nat's birthday - indeed very sweet of them. We had a small birthday party for Nat at home with my parents, sister and my brother-in-law, and my sister's bestie and her husband, whom my girls love to play with.

My mum cooked some mee sua, insisted on some eggs (didn't dye red though), I made shepherd's pie, and my sister's friend made yummy chinese meat rolls. I know the combination sounded weird HAHA! And I baked the chocolate muffins again since it's a hit for everyone and decorated with some toppers which I downloaded.

So Nat is now 2 years old. She's talking a lot a lot and we do think she talks much better than her sister. She could even argue with us at times! However, because of her dazzling big eyes I supposed?, everyone loves her. We brought her out and everyone - including strangers - said that she's cute, she's a doll, she's so adorable and etc. Childcare carers love her to bits though she's active, and Eunice's kinder's teachers love her too to allow her to play with the kinder students for 15-20 mins everyday when we fetch Eunice to school. Eunice's kinder friends like to cuddle her and play with her everytime they see her.

My cutie girl posing with the balloons with her fav Elmo character

Simple Birthday Lunch

The 2yo Birthday Cake

Birthday Muffins with rabbit toppers....

With grandparents all the way from Sarawak

Four of us!

Singing Birthday Song. Look at the happy little girl!

Blow Candles! Happy Birthday my little Natalie!

All the pretty girls (Eunice didn't want to join :P)

All the birthday presents from cousins & aunties

Posing the Lego Duplo

She's surely a darling to everyone. My prayer is she'll continue to grow up healthily, beautifully and happily.
:)

Nat's 1st Birthday Celebration...... LAST YEAR!

I just realized I didn't blog about Nat's first birthday. Gosh! Blame it on the moving that kept my mind so busy to write. :P...

So the next few entries will all be my girl's birthday celebrations (bear with me!). I need to be fair to both my girls. :)

Natalie is a total different girl from Eunice. She was an angel when she's a baby. She slept through the night when she was as young as 3.5mo! I remember I freaked out and picked her up to latch but she refused to drink, and cried out loudly until I put her back to her cot, and she continued sleeping. Even though she slept through the night, I still woke up once a while to check on her to make sure she's breathing. Well, can't blame me, Eunice woke up to direct latch until she's 14mo! In my mind, all babies need to take their late supper or early breakfast in the mid night or early morning! And the best thing is, she slept as early as 830pm all the way until 630am or 7am. What a blessing! :)

Besides, when it comes to her solid feeding, it's easy. She eats everything that I prepared. No fuss. No matter how bad it tastes. I remember giving her a bowl of porridge with blended spinach, and I thought maybe there's too much spinach and it tasted too "green", but she still finished it! It's so easy to feed her, unlike Eunice who could be a disaster when it comes to feeding. We were all prepared for all the sleepless nights and all the feeding nightmares when planning for 2nd baby but to our surprise, Natalie is such an easy baby. :)..

I started to look around a nice venue for her birthday party when her 1st birthday was approaching. EG is a very fussy man, and said that we need to have one as good as Eunice's, and with nicer food. After looking around, we decided to have it in Irrawaddy Fine Food. We looked at the menu, went and tried the food, and had a chat with the person in charge. EG was happy with the food and the cosy environment. So we decided to have it there.

This round, we couldn't afford the famous With Love for video like what we had for Eunice's first birthday, so we decided to engage our good friend Daniel Yap for nice photos! Having 2 kids really keep our hands full. I have no time to take out my camera at all as I need to mind two children. So I could only count on Daniel for the photos.

For the cake, all my usual cake bakers are either not baking anymore, or they went outstation. So I had to look for new one. After asking around, I decided to ask TweetHomeMade to bake me a simple fondant cake with lady bug design. I wanted to have a bumble bee theme birthday but the table cloth in Irrawaddy was red & white checked, so I decided to change to lady bug instead.

We kept the celebration easy and simple. Friends love the food. The place is a little small hence we kept the guest group small, we only invited like 6 families with kids, and we have the whole restaurant to ourselves. Staff in Irrawaddy Fine Food are exceptionally helpful and accommodating in decorating and arranging the place for us. And all our friends love the food. So, Nat turned one in a blink of eye - literally! I couldn't believe she's ONE so fast. And next, I'm going to blog about her 2nd birthday!

The cheeky looking super birthday girl

Creative shot by photographer

Pizza

Simple food label done by me :)

These sausages are surely a big hit!

Same decor on the high chair as Eunice

Food table

Kids admiring the food

My favorite shot! :)

Lady bug birthday cake

The lovely birthday cake

Another view of the food table

Gee..! I feel like such a lousy mom. Tell me I'm not! :)

First: Fell Sick at 13.5mo

My mind is all with my little Natalie these few days. I think about her day and night, regardless where I am. She fell sick since last weekend, had a very high fever. Even with PCM, her fever will go up till 38C on last Saturday. On Sunday, we brought her to Dr Pong in Adventist. He told us not to worry and to sponge her often to bring the temperature down.

The whole Sunday I was beside her. She's cranky because her body was scorching hot. But we couldn't feed her PCM in less than 4 hours. I tried to wipe her with a wet handkerchief but she'd cry and cry when I wipe her face. I guess it doesn't feel nice to do that. But when she hit a point when she was too lethargic to fight back, she'd just let me do whatever that I want, and look at me blankly. :(

Poor girl!

I always call her a tough girl. I remember visiting Dr every month during Eunice's time when she was less than 1 yo as she always came down with flu. For Nat, she's perfectly healthy even though we brought her out more often, and I am more relax (or cin-cai) in her stuff, let her bite ANYTHING that she wants, and didn't really bother to make sure everything is sterilised. She has been well all these time. Except few weeks before she turns 1, she had throat infection and was prescribed antibiotics for 5 days. However, even so, she was still active and eating well. Fever was low grade and recovered in 1-2 days.

22/9 - Little poor girl stopped fighting and just let me put the wet hanky on her forehead to cool her temperature down.

22/9 - Little girl's lethargic look

22/9 - Slept almost the whole day on Sunday

Dr Pong checked her ears, lungs and throat, all are clear and said it should be viral. We were asked to monitor her a few days. Yesterday her body has a lot of rashes, we suspected it's Roseola, like what Eunice had in her 8th month. Today is her 5th day, her fever is still there though now the PCM feeding gap can last up to 10 hours. However, with the fever there, it still worries me.

I hope she's teething. And I hope her teeth will come out soon. Yes, still toothless at 13.5mo.

Hmm, I am not sure if it's co-incident or what. Eunice also had her first antibiotic course for throat infection few weeks before she turned 1, so as Natalie. And Eunice had roseola and was admitted (lack of knowledge then) at her 8 mth and her first tooth erupted after that. I sure pray hard that Natalie's fever was nothing serious, and it's the same as the sister, whereby her first tooth is erupting soon!

Verdict of a full time working mum. This is the time when I wish I can leave all my stupid projects and bring my poor little girl home. :(

Natalie: Bad Hair Day @ 10th Mth

My baby Natalie is now 10 mths old. Oh, she surely keeps me very busy. She's very different from her sister Eunice. But one thing for sure, they are equally manja. Once we raise voice, or if we beat her (lightly - especially when she keeps turning while changing diaper), she'll burst out in loud cry. Sometimes we look at her sternly when she did something that she shouldn't, she'll stare at us with her big eyes, waiting for our next response. If we smile to her, she'll give us her big wide smile, but if we continue to be stern and our voice sounds stern, she'll then cry out loud. :)

Nevertheless, she's still such a darling to us.

I love to see her waking up in the morning. I normally pumped in the room after I get up. Sometimes, she'll wake up when she heard some noise. And I'll see her struggling to sit up, trying hard to open her eyes, and kept making noises - as if she's going to lose any playful opportunity. And the moment she opens her big eyes wide, she'll greet us with her sweetest smile, the toothless smile. Yea, still no sign of tooth at 10 mths. :)

Both my babies have lots of hair, and we never shave them. It's too beautiful to shave their hair. Natalie has more hair than her sister. I managed to capture some of her pics when she woke up 2 days ago. I think she had a bad hair day. It really cheer up my days looking at her pictures. :)

It's not easy to take her pics and she's very very active

Sleepy look? Not really, just because she's moving a lot...

Now she looks awake :)

She and her two favorite fingers, which comfort her most of the time :)

I took a video too. :)

We're going to bring her for a hair cut this weekend. It's cute for her to have so much hair, I know, but I think it's kinda hot and unruly now. But I hope her hair will grow long enough for her birthday party in the next 2 months.

She's such a beautiful baby. :)

My little girl is standing up!

I know I seldom blog about little darling Natalie. My bad. :).. But she has been keeping me very busy when we take care of her ourselves.

Today she achieved another big milestone! She stood up in her playpen with support. :)

23rd March - Standing up with support

She's definitely very different from Eunice. I do think she has lots of my gene! This is what I wrote in my facebook today. EG and Eunice were napping upstair so today it was only me and Nat's time together. :)
  
23 Mar: Doing some ppt slides while leaving the small girl crawling herself, and my little explorer crawled from the living area, to her play area, then to the study room, and crawled out to underneath her high chair, talked to some pest at the corner, and continue to crawl into the oily wet kitchen and got caught out and "quarantined" in playpen.. and while I continue with my ppt slides, from the corner of my eye, I saw my little explorer standing up in her playpen.... :)... @ ~7.5 mths...


Such a cutie! Muakss! :)

Natalie's Update

Once, a friend told me, you won't enjoy when you have the first baby because you're too stress up, for the 2nd baby you'll enjoy it much more. And that's what I am experiencing now. :)

Since we took care of Eunice ourselves, both EG and I were kinda ready to go through all the "hardship" again with Natalie's arrival. However, I thank God that Natalie is a much easier baby than Eunice. She enjoys going out, and she sleeps most of the time. She sits in her stroller and she's quiet as long as she's carried. :)

Time really flies with 2 kids at home. We're just busy with house work and preparing meals/milk for the kids and Natalie is already 4.5 moths old, going to be 5 months old soon.We're very happy with our little girl's milestone. In her 2nd month+, she could actually turn from her back to her tummy. She gave us a shock. What a strong girl.

At her 4th month now, Natalie can:
1. Lift head while lying on tummy @ her 1st month
2. Reponds to sound since confinement
3. Stares at faces since confinement
4. Follow objects with eyes since confinement
5. Gurgles and coos @ her 2nd month
6. Hold her head up high @ her 2nd month
7. Turns from back to tummy @ her 2nd month
8. Does mini push up @ her 3rd month
9. Rolls all over the mat from tummy to back to tummy @ her 3rd month
10. Grasp a toy with her hands @ her 3rd month +
11. Smiles & laughs

Whenever I carry Nat up on a sitting position, she'd "stand" on my tummy with her legs straight. :).. We do think she has very strong legs. Even confinement lady said that.

And the best part about Natalie is, at her 4 mths+, since 19th Dec, she has been sleeping through the night! Her last feed is normally around 8pm-9pm, and she'd sleep for 12 hours, sometimes even longer, without waking up to drink. I tried picking her up to direct latch but she cried. I was worried initially, but later I read that sleeping is more important than drinking. So, I let her be. Hence, as impossible as it sounded, I also started to sleep through the night. What a luxury it is! I could actually do some of my stuff after she sleeps.

I have to agree with some ppl that Natalie is a very contented baby. We brought her to watch a musical play from our church on Christmas, All Nat did was to lie on my chest, slept 2 rounds, woke up but stayed on my chest quietly, throughout the whole 2 hours! I could actually finish watching the whole play! :)

And yes, she's breastfed, of course. She doesn't drink as much as Eunice, at least 30% less, but her weight gain is on par with Eunice's with Eunice was a baby, hence Dr said there's nothing to be worried about since her weight growth is above average. She sleeps more than she drinks, I guess she grows in her dream. :)

26/10 - Flipped herself

Doing push up

@ Altera Family Day :)

My pretty little girl

2/12 - Sitting straight up in her bumbo