New Kid On The Blog

3-May-2011:

Now, let's see what has happened since the last time I wrote. I don't know. Time seems to fly and everything is now a blur. All I know is that both kids are healthy, we are healthy and we are all happy.

Yesterday, Dom did all the dishes for me after dinner. All by himself without any help. I inspected his work after that and there was no difference from daddy's work - satisfactory for his age (but less so for daddy's age ... haha!). He was such a good boy. Only Iast week, he mopped the floor for me (after I've vacuumed it). Recently, I reflected on his younger days. He was so cute and adorable and I was hugging and kissing him constantly. I felt a kind of sadness because these days I'm showering him less affection, probably because he is older now and I have Emily. I cradle and kiss her more often. After all, she is the baby. I've asked myself if I love Em more than Dom. It's very hard to shower the same affection to both of them. I guess I just love them differently. After searching myself several times, I've come to the conclusion that I love them the same. Differently, but with the same magnitude. I went through many scenarios to arrive at this conclusion (and to assure myself of my own feelings). One of them was when a woman was reported drowned after driving into a river/drain during a heavy downpour. I imagined myself driving into the river with my two kids in the car with me. What would I do? It was so scary just to imagine it that I instantly prayed to God.

Both Dom and Em are looking more and more alike. They definitely look like brother and sister. It is sometimes fun and heart warming to see them together but they have started to fight! Dom knows never to hurt Em, but he likes to annoy her, and Em is easily annoyed. She even likes to complain about Dom, i.e. babbles obviously in a displeased way (usually with tears) and inserting the phrase "gor-gor" in between her babbling while pointing at Dom's direction. And Dom does like to annoy her. I think he was just trying to get attention. He's usually very good when Em is not around. I don't know what I should do about this. He just can't leave her alone, i.e. he will snatch her pillow away from her, poke her in the stomach with his finger, squeeze her cheeks ... nothing that hurts her but makes her wail all the same, which annoys me tremendously.

Speech wise, Em has improved a lot over the past few months. She addresses each member of the family (including grandparents and cousins) correctly. When she sees something "interesting", she says "Mummy, see ... ", or "Daddy, see ...", while pointing to the object. Every evening after dinner, she will go to the fridge and say "orange" (but it sounded like "orwen"). When she hears the gate opens, she'll say "Daddy's back". When Dom is not around (possibly doing his big business upstairs), she will ask "Where gor-gor?". When it's raining, she will look up the sky and say "raining" (but it doesn't really sound like "raining" at all, only I can understand her). When she wants milk, she will ask for "nan-nan". When we get in the car, she'll automatically ask for her "chuit-chuit" so that she can go to sleep. When she wants to go out, she says "shoes" (but really, it sounds like "foo" instead). When Dom gets up from his seat during dinner, she orders him to "sit down". She can also communicate when she needs to do her business by making "mm-mmmm" sound and by standing near the toilet. Passing motion is a major business for her. She reminds me of the pushing stage during labour.

Speaking of constipation, I have feeling it has something to do with the food that my MIL feeds her. She didn't have any problems before this when I used to cook her lunch in the morning. But since she got older and was able to share the same food with the other kids, she started eating what MIL cooked and then around the same time (if I'm not mistaken), she started to have constipation. Dom didn't have this problem when we were in London.

Well, basically Em has grown a lot. She can sing, though nobody understand what she's singing. But we definitely know that she's singing because she does it when there's music and she nods her head to the beat. It was so cute! Last weekend, during Joe's birthday, she sang one word of the birthday song, i.e. "birth-dayy" (not exactly the correct pronunciation but intelligible). She imitates stuffs that we do, especially stuffs that Dom does. So when I was teaching her how to gargle and rinse her mouth, I got Dom to demonstrate it - gulp it, then spit it out. But she kept swallowing the water. :p

She is also very mobile, as in she goes up and down stairs on her own without any assistance, but I always try to keep an eye on her in case she accidentally falls. Feeding time, she feeds herself well using the fork and spoon but she doesn't eat a lot (compared to Dom at her age). She especially doesn't like meat. The doctor said it was okay because some kids do hang on to their milk longer than others. But the thing is she doesn't drink a lot of milk compared to Dom either. Most of the time she doesn't even finish the 5 ounces that we give her 5 times a day.

Well, I think that's about enough for Em. As for Dom, there isn't much to update on. He's doing well in school and reads much better now. One thing for sure, he has an interesting mind, always asking interesting questions. Just the other day he asked me what's the difference between concrete and cement and why are there two words to describe the same thing. I've explained the difference to him, and then he asked why is it that when cement dries up it becomes hard but when water dries up it just disappears? There are many, many more questions. Why is the toilet bowl always filled with water even though there's a drain hole? Why did his toy train station float even though it was heavy? How did the guy at the McD drive through know we were there? How did his voice get into the "machine"? How did the automatic door know to open the door when we approached? Where did the air-cond from the car come from? How can the ostrich run faster than the car? (cos he saw in one of the silly cartoons that the ostrich overtook the car). And do you know that Garfield is a human in a cat suit? Haha. Endless questions!

Dom received his progress report from the school yesterday. I think he's not going to be very good academically. Sigh ... never mind, I think Einstein didn't do very well in school either. :p

I just realized I haven't uploaded a lot of the kids' photos yet. No time to do it, gotta do it later. :-)

# posted by Skye @ 4:01 am