Justin is 1 Year Old!

Justin turned 1 year old on 25 July 2010. On 27 July 2010, we took him to the clinic for his MMR jab and regular check-up. He now weighs 8.9kg and 76cm in length (or height). Compared to Julian when he was 1 year old, Justin is 0.3kg heavier but 2cm shorter.

Here are some observations in the run-up to his first birthday:

• Not much changes in his milk and solid intake. He's still on direct or expressed breast milk, and supplemented with formula every 2-3 hours. He takes about 3oz at each feed. As for his solids, he takes 2 porridge or cereal meals during the day, and a snack for dinner.
  
• He has 6 teeth: 4 incisors on top and 2 incisors at the bottom.
  
• Can blow flying kisses.
  
• Can clap hands.
  
• Refuses to sleep when he sees Julian awake.
  
• Willing to sit in the car seat most of the time, but sometimes prefer to stand in the seat *slaps forehead*.
  
• Has started to walk unaided! He started with 2 steps and progressed to 4 steps on 20 July 2010. Just a day or two before his birthday, he was doing about 6 steps. He usually reverts to crawling because it's faster :o).
  
• He is making more and more different sounds. He makes a funny sound when laughing... something like the cranking of a car engine when it starts.
  
• When he doesn't get what he wants, he sometimes clenches his fists and appears to shiver.
  
• We've sometimes managed to get him to pass motion in the potty.

[Justin]


[Not happy about something]


[Justin doing the cup-crawl]


[Justin stands]

We celebrated Justin's first birthday with lunch at Sea Palace Restaurant in Taman Pekaka, Penang. We booked 2 tables. Keeping to our "tradition", we baked yet another teddybear cake. This time it's a banana and orange polar bear cake. It took about 9 hours over 2 days to complete.


[Justin's banana and orange polar bear birthday cake]


[Happy Birthday To Youuuuu.... now blow! *phhffff* (photo taken by Niq)]


[I'm ONE! (photo taken by Niq)]

Happy 1st Birthday, Justin!

Three's Company

Here are two recent photos of the boys with either one of us.


[Mummy and the boys]


[Daddy and the boys]

Julian at 37 Months

Julian turned 37 months old on 28 June 2010.

He has been attending playschool for about one-and-a-half months and seems to be liking it (at least he doesn't object to going). We learned that he likes the outdoor activities (this was no surprise to us).

During the 2nd week of the June 2010 school holidays, his kindy had special activities which included a talentime, an excursion to the Penang Bird Park in Seberang Jaya, and a cookie-baking session for Father's Day. For the talentime, he sang some parts of the rhyme "Five Little Monkeys" and received a trophy. During the bird park excursion, they had lunch at the cafeteria. He was seated at a table of four with three adults (says a lot, doesn't it?).


[Julian in uniform]


[Julian's first trophy]


[Father's Day Cookie... delicious!]

His speech continues to improve and can imitate words and sentences quite easily. We make phone calls to his grandparents regularly and let him "chat" with them (we tell him what to say), much to their amusement.

He continues to be picky with food but sometimes surprises us with the occasional exception. Recently, he seems to like plain roti canai with sugar. Other than the usual porridge, fried rice, or half-boiled egg, he loves bean curd.


[Julian eating roti canai with sugar]


[Julian and Mummy]


[Julian with his shape puzzles]


[Julian and the vibrating ball]


[Julian looking cool, thanks to Suk Suk & Suk Meh]


[Julian at the playground]

Justin at 11 Months

Justin turns 11 months old today. He has not put on weight (still about 8.5kg) for the past 3 months due to illness. Two months ago, we suspected he had measles or roseola (fever followed by spots all over his body). Then the past month, he had diarrhoea followed by a bad lung infection (coughing and wheezing).

Otherwise, he's turning out to be quite an active child, sometimes we think he'll turn out to be even more active than Julian *horrors*! He loves to pull himself up to a standing position and can stand very steadily. He can also hop onto the toy car or toy horse and push himself forward, and then hop off... all by himself *horrors again*! He now also loves the slide (assisted of course).

He loves to "harass" Julian. There was once when Julian was sitting on the carpet, Justin crawled up to him. Then, he put his hands on Julian's back to pull himself up to standing position. He makes a sly grin, and then pats Julian's head! And just today, he harassed Julian by wanting to scratch a scar on Julian's knee. However, Mummy distracted Justin by giving him a plastic cup to play with. Justin then used the plastic cup to knock Julian's head *slaps forehead*!

On communication, he seems to be making sounds such as "pah" (much to Grandpa's delight!) and "woh woh" (dog barking).

One more upper incisor has erupted making a total of 5 teeth so far. He still prefers rice porridge over cereals, and currently likes bread as well.


[Justin]


[Justin and Mummy]


[Justin bites a number]


[Stunt-baby]

Birthday Birding

I was recently on leave on my birthday and decided that I would go birding. I headed to USM's Bird Valley (behind the Chancellory building, next to the School of Social Sciences). Was not very successful here... only managed to take a photo of a golden orb weaver spider.


[Golden orb weaver spider (likely a Nephila pilipes)]

I then headed to the circular road surrounding the School of Pharmacy. Had better shots here.


[White-throated kingfisher keeping an eye on a dragonfly]


[Olive-backed sunbird]


[Another shot of the olive-backed sunbird]


[Yellow-vented bulbul]

Some months ago, I caught this olive-backed sunbird on our apartment balcony.


[Olive-backed sunbird on balcony railing]

Julian is 3 years old!

Happy Birthday Julian! Julian turned 3 on 28 May 2010.

The day before, we brought a cake to school for him so he could celebrate there. On the actual day, we celebrated with a lunch at Sea Palace Restaurant.

Here are his updates:

• He loves playing on the computer and is quite adept at handling the computer mouse. He can accurately click on the various small colour squares to change the colour in Microsoft Paint, currently his favourite program. He is also able to click on the icons to change the paint style e.g. brush, spray or fill.
  
• He loves sticker books.
  
• He can now recite his ABC completely and in the correct order :-)
  
• Lately, his temperament seems to have gone a bit haywire. He screams when he doesn't want to do something and goes into tantrums. However, his temperament seems better when Justin is not around. Maybe he's vying for attention...
  
• He would say he doesn't want something or doesn't want to do something (e.g. doesn't want to eat), and when we 'comply', he will immediately say he wants it ("I wanna"). It appears to be like a game to him, but can get annoying for us.
  
• His speech continues to improve.
  

[Bad-back bag]


[Julian loves sticker books]


[Julian and a lemon]


[Birthday cake]


[Happy birthday to you.... *blow!*]


[Julian's birthday family photo]

Justin at 10 Months

Justin turned 10 months old on 25 May 2010. He weighed in at 8.5kg. No change from 2 months ago :-( (probably because he was ill the past month). His length is now 74cm.

Here are his updates:

• From squatting position, he has managed to pull himself up to standing position without support several times.
  
• He can stand without support for longer periods.
  
• He can climb when the height of the object is right e.g he has climbed onto the seat of the toy car
  
• He will push away a hand that is obstructing him from doing something. If we want to take away something he is holding he will pull the object away from us.
  
• He has begun the behaviour of crying when he doesn't get what he wants.
  
• He would shake his head when he hears music. Very Cute ;-)
  
• He sometimes also shakes his head when we say 'no'. He can even shake his head when he doesn't want something! :-)
  
• He can't stay still while being changed. Actually this has been going on for a few months now. I think we forgot to record it. We try to use toys, books, etc to keep him occupied at this time but he's got a mind of his own and is not easily distracted by us!
  
• He's very focused on big bro Julian and adores him.
  
• His upper two front teeth have erupted, so he's now got 4 teeth. And he loves sinking them into human flesh (except his own, of course!)! *OUCH*
  

[Whoa! What's that?!]


[Justin and a lemon]


[Justin and a banana]


[Justin with a flashcard]


[Justin's new hairdo]


[No more funny hairdo, OK?!]

Julian Goes To Play-School

Julian started attending play-school on 11 May 2010. He's there in the morning only and after lunch, he's back at the babysitter's place. It's a good thing that the kindy is located just diagonally opposite the babysitter's place. To Julian, the kindy is called the "yellow school" :o).

He was enthusiastic the first few days but the novelty has since faded. Apparently he participates when he wants to but otherwise would 'do his own stuff'. He would not be forced into anything, stubbornly lying down saying "mai" if the teacher tries to make him do something he doesn't want to. Of course this is his first month so he's actually still adjusting.

The teacher is pleased with his ability to feed himself although he is choosy with food there as well. He has also impressed his teacher with his number skills.

Our 6th Anniversary

We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on 1 May 2010.

We did a little bit of planning this year to have some time for ourselves on 29 April 2010 while the kids were at the baby sitter's. After dropping off the kids, we had Indian breakfast at Sri Ananda Bhawan's in the Little India area in town. We then adjourned to Prangin Mall to "walk-off" the breakfast :o).

For lunch, we had some difficulty with the venue. We initially wanted to revisit Chaser's at Gurney Drive, but little did we know that they were no longer there. Plan B was to try out Ribs on Burmah Road. This also we failed to locate. Finally, we settled for The Ship on Sri Bahari Road.

At The Ship, we ordered a Mixed Grill and a Seafood Platter. So, between us, we had beef, chicken, lamb, bacon, sausage, egg, fish, squid, prawn, soft-shelled crab and scallop. Really fantastic! To wash it all down, we ordered a Secretary's Mocktail and a Virgin Mary.


[The Ship's Mixed Grill]


[The Ship's Seafood Platter]


[Secretary's Mocktail and Virgin Mary]

Later in the day, we headed down to the apartment pool for a dip... something we have not done, just the two of us, in quite a while :o).

On 1 May 2010, it was pretty much a usual Saturday with one very active boy and an inquisitive baby *sweats*. After attending Sunset Mass, dinner, and getting the boys to bed, we lit our Unity Candle and prayed our Anniversary Prayer.


[Lighting of our Unity Candle 2010]

Let's Wash The Car

In the morning, it doesn't take long for the boys to "start their engines". Given a minute or two of "blur-ness", they're up and about, busy and active. Here're some recent photos.


[The boys... early in the morning...]


[Let's wash the car!]


[The boys]

True Flavours

While in KL recently we had the privilege to taste some True Flavours cookies. We sampled the chocolate chip cookie and the Anzac Biscuits. Both tasted very good :-)

Difficult to review chocolate chip cookies though I will say that they are of high quality. Very delicious :-)

I like the Anzac Biscuits in particular. It's an oat cookie. I think the main difference that makes it stand out is that it's so full of oats! Other oat cookies I've eaten are just COATED with oats. This is the real stuff inside out! I'm generally not an oat fan but this tasted really good. Not too strong on the oaty taste and not too sweet. Just the right combination to please the palate :-)

For baking enthusiasts, the recipe can be found in "Oats Delicieux!", Evelyn Tai's debut book under Seashore Publishing. It's sold in Popular Bookstore.

For those not into baking, True Flavours cakes & cookies are sold at Amcorp Mall, PJ on Sunday mornings and Bukit Kiara night market on Thursday evenings. You can check out the website: www.trueflavours.com.my


[Anzac Biscuits and Chocolate Chip Cookies]


[The Book: Oats Delicieux!]

The Plural of Car is...

Carses.

Conversation 1:

Julian: Wow! So many bus.

Us: So many bus-ES!

Julian: So many buses!

Conversation 2:

Julian: Wow! So many carses.

Us: So many car-SS!

Julian: So many carssss!

Is English really that confusing...?! ;-)

Julian at 35 Months

Julian turned 35 months old on 28 April 2010.

He is much more fluent in speech and can communicate quite well. He can be quite a chatterbox especially when travelling in the car. However, his overall speech ability is not fully developed yet. His effort in uttering new sentences is noticeable. Sometimes we have difficulty understanding what he says. However, we are very proud that his articulation of final consonants is clear especially with words/phrases that he is familiar with. For example, he can say 'daddy's book' as opposed to 'daddy book' (with the final consonant of 'book' clearly articulated also) :-)

Very often he is still parroting us especially when we ask him questions.
Julian: It's an orange bus.
Mummy/Daddy: Is the bus small or big?
Julian: It's a big one.
Mummy/Daddy: Is the bus big or small?
Julian: It's a small one.

But sometimes he can engage in quite intelligent conversations.
Julian: Mummy help Julian open (holding a packet of biscuits)
Mummy: Cannot Julian, mummy's hands are wet.
Julian: Mummy dry hand (holding the hand towel)

Julian is speaking English almost all the time; so much so that when we ask him to say certain words in a chinese dialect, he says it with an English 'accent'! We've requested the baby sitter to speak more Hokkien to him in the hope that he would pick up the tones of a tonal language...

When playing, Julian can be quite rough with Justin, rolling on top of him or pulling him backwards. While we adults worry about safety, Justin seems to love it. Sometimes Julian would push Justin down when Justin is sitting. If not 'saved', this would naturally result in Justin crying as his head would hit the floor. We used to think Julian was being naughty but have come to realise that he actually wants to play 'twinkle star' and wants Justin to lie down.

Currently Julian likes

• playing with balls and play doh
  
• painting
  
• tracing shapes using a stencil
  
• playing on the computer
  
• and of course, watching tv
  

For sometime now, he has been able to put on (sometimes reverse :-) ) and take off his slippers on his own. Now, he is also able to take off his shoes (those with zappers) and socks on his own. Yay! He's also generally able to feed himself at meal times although he still requires some supervision and some help now and again to get the food into the spoon. We haven't yet taught him to use the fork.


[A new form of self-imposed punishment?!]


[Oh... how comfy!]


[Julian loves ice-cream]