The New Morning Show

Yawn! Yawn!

We are not early risers, only when the occasion calls for, so when Chloe started waking up every morning at around 9 am, you have 2 very sleepyheads complete with dark circles and puffy eyes.

About 8 am, she would wake up for a thirst quencher, after which I would just conveniently and lazily placed her between us and fall back for some sleep. She is now all ready for her morning call later on.

She would start with an 'ah' then send a sprawling kick to either one of us, rolls over to Simon and starts to nudge and pinch him. Most of the time, I would just pretend to carry on sleeping so that I would not be under attack. The thing is papa is more than willing and happy to accept the kick in the face from his little girl early in the morning. No attention? Time for Plan B. Let’s scale the human mountain! Chloe would start to climb over him to reach for the bedside lamp. There is no stopping her now.

The lamp is the main attraction in the room; the on/off switch has a dangling ball bearing, which makes it very easy for her to pull to switch the lights on and off. Note: If you see flicking lights in my room, we are not sending SOS signals.

By this time, papa is totally awake to prevent her from doing further damage to the lamp and herself, couple more steps she would land on the floor. With all the laughter and shouting, I am up to join the game too. She did it once again! If you can't beat them, join them. Smile!

That is her new routine these days. Yawns!

PS. I need some magic eye creams, mask etc to keep the lines and puffiness away. Bring it on!

Chloe, fresh from her afternoon

She's still a little drowsy so I decided to have a little fun by putting her on top of the tortoise and took a picture with my handphone.

Not Blogging Enough

My posting seems to be getting lesser. Hmm... I'm not procrastinating, the truth is Chloe is getting up and about these days. She is crawling, can sit up by herself, trying to stand wanting to walk. And mummy is trying to manage the household, cook and try to get some decent sleep. 8 hours of beauty sleep, long gone. :)

She is getting very curious about every single thing and wants to peck, poke and lay her hands on everything I am doing.

If she caught me typing away on the keyboard, she will crawled over and wants to sit on my lap and try to share the board with me. Thank you baby but most of the time, she will pulled off connecting wires, the protective cover on the keyboard and stationery on the table. Writing an entry will take like a day or more as I quickly sneaked in a line or a photo while she takes her nap. Yes, some of the entries are a little back dated.

Little Miss Mischief emptying her toy box

The latest fun sport which can keep her occupied for quite a while. She will pull the bigger items out then emptied the whole box onto the floor and pick her way through. Do a little tasting, knock and bang to test their durability and just spread them all over the room.

Standing with the aid of the sofa bed

Why is Chloe standing so still and quiet? Not quite right. She's going through my magazine, actually she's tearing bits off the corners and chewing them. Better not let Simon knows, papa's eyes will popped.

Photo Galore

What is Chloe up to these days?

She rides her eco-car around the world...

...then she cleaned and polished it the 'green way' using her saliva

One of her gym session, I can't decide who's happier

Chloe trying to snatch the spoon from Simon's hand to scoop the lychee panna cotta or more like mashed it up

Not very successful in her food mashing

Nowadays, we have to take turns carrying her while we dined out as she refused to sit in the baby chair. To be fair, the best is 20 mins in her stroller and dinner is not served yet.

Sharing a tender moment with Evans. Hmm... she likes to tickle chins.

At the gym, waiting for class to start.

She enjoys her gym class and always voice her happiness by babbling her baby talk at the top of her voice.

Cranston and Chloe.

Did I mentioned that they shared the same birthday. :) How often do you have a friend who is born on the same day as you are?

High tea at Goodwood Park Hotel.

Sipping water from papa's cup, water seems to taste sweeter when drank this way. She was slurping it up.

Mini thai massage for Henry.

Anyone else? Baby loves bouncing on thighs, preferably fatter ones. It's good for you cos over time, it will become muscles and you don't even have to sweat for it.

At the courtyard.

What's she looking at? Guests swimming in the pool. No hunks. No babes too cos all of them are fully clothed enjoying tea at the lounge. :)

Playing with dinner, trying to chew a french bean. Okay, she's actually sucking the gravy, a good way to learn how to use the straw? I'll find out.

Celebrating Eileen's birthday on the 19 July 07.

Chloe's grumpy cos she's not able to touch the candles on the cake so she takes it out on the birthday girl. Ouch! Grandma happily indulging her in the hair pulling act. Naughty!

Grandpa carrying her around the house.

In case you are wondering whether my papa is doing it standing on one leg, fret not, he is balancing himself while adjusting his grip on this wriggly girl.

Gym time again.

Babies sitting on the beam for sing along session. Ring your bells! Ting a ling a ling!

Chloe being very friendly and concerned, trying to calm a friend. 'Hey, it's okay, you wouldn't fall off, mummy's holding you. Smile! Let's play!'

Crawling through the tunnels and...

... you get a surprise! Cranston waiting at the other end. Peek a boo!

A very happy and tired pair (honestly, only one is tired, no prize for the correct answer). What's she chewing? My box of Meiji baby chocolate. It's strictly not for babies. The cashier had a frown and big wide eyes (about to pop) and asked if she's eating it, she chilled out and dropped her shoulders only when I said 'Mama's.' Anyway, she'll be having it later, the processed version in her milk. Does that explained why she's so highly charged all the time, sugar loaded?

Car Ride & Safety

It just sets me off when I see toddlers and children not properly seated (in a car seat) or buckled up when travelling in a car. Worst, when they started treating the car like a 'mini circus', climbing up the seat, trying to get from the back to front and sitting on another adult's lap, who's not buckled up as well. Gosh! What's going on in their parent's head? I mean how expensive is a car seat or a booster seat? (unless you're taking about getting a Ferrari one) If you can afford a car and decorate it with a 'fish tail' (the spooler) and bling bling rims, surely you can put in a car seat for your kid. That's what we saw when we stop at the traffic lights the other day, 2 kids were almost doing somersaults in the car and the parents just heck care. Can you imagine if the driver braked suddenly? You have tragedy in the making.

School buses are equally dangerous. Every afternoon you can see mini vans loaded with highly energetic primary school students pacing and playing in the van and the driver couldn't care less. I think he's just so used to it or gave up trying to get them sit down - he is not the discipline master at end of the day.

If you see a woman making funny faces, belting out nursery rhymes and mimicking cartoon characters, yes, it's me trying to pacify and keep a grouchy baby in her car seat.

PS. We are now on the search for a bigger car seat for Chloe as she's going to outgrow her current one very soon, preferably one with bucket seat, good cushioning, comfy harness belts, nice colors, air bags, attached toys and music. :)

Commando Crawl

Chloe has learned how to crawl not on her hands and knees but how army guys do it - the whole body in contact with the ground, push and pull. So with her new skill she's super thrilled cos she is going places (not exactly very far, just her playroom actually) and can get to the things she wants. It's very amusing to watch her crawl for her toys.

She will check out all the toys placed around the room then proceed to the edge of the rubber mat and start chewing it. Today, I just lay down and pretend not to care whatever she is doing and she went straight for my dumbbells at the door (multi-purpose, serves as my door-stopper too). She touched the dumbbells, looked at and make some noise then tried to picked them up. At least I think she's trying to pick them up cos she wraps her hands around it. Small hands and a 10 pound dumbbell, you can only roll it an inch. Hee..ee. Not much fun, so she goes for the second one, same result but she tried to chew it to make sure it is really a boring 'toy'.

All this while, I was just laying there grinning, okay I was laughing and doing a 'live' commentary to Simon. Next stop, she heads for the bathroom. Time to get her out, not the place to visit when you're on your tummy even if it's an unused one. A little upset that her excursion ended just when she managed to get out of the door.

Looking out, hoping and trying to crawl out.

One of the best thing to get her crawling - the phone.

Food Game & Strategy

We have the good and bad food days and by that I don't meant cooking and serving lousy inedible food. It's the level of difficulty to get food down our little girl's throat, glurp, I'm beginning to sound like a bad mama now, force-feeding babies. Chloe has freshly cooked meals 90% of the time, the 10% comes from powdered cereal (which she totally refuses to eat nowadays), fromage cheese and baby potato puffs (like Nestle's honey star).

Between Simon and I, we have played the roles of different 'animals' and clowns singing nursery rhymes and we have to come up with new strategies each mealtime.

Strategy #101 - The Spaceship
I will load spoon with food then flies it around her to attract her attention. This must be done with lots of sound effects like in Star Wars. When she's really focusing on the spoon, flies spoon to the entrance (mouth) and hope that she takes it.
Success Rate: 3/5
Difficulty Level: 1/5

Strategy #102 - Singapore Idol
Singing! Just sing any nursery rhymes with lots of claps and funny expressions.
Success Rate: 3/5
Difficulty Level: 2/5 (A little breathless from singing with all the actions)

Strategy #103 - What You See Is Not What you Get
Show her a cookie or anything you have on your plate, the moment she opens her mouth give her the real thing. Yeah! I know, this is cheating.
Success Rate: 2/5
Difficulty Level 2/5

And of course the big mischief has her ever ready counter attack stance by beating the table and flinging her hands all over the place. Success rate of dinner on the floor 4/5.

Nice and clean. Chloe refuses to sit down for dinner, so we had her pose for a picture instead and this makes her very happy.

Baby spoons are deem not nice by her, she prefers my spoon. Flavor of the day, Milo!

Playing with her rice cracker. Most of the time, she eats like 20%, 40% will be eaten by me and the rest goes to Sunny. And Sunny is smart these days, he'll not beg for food, he'll help himself to whatever Chloe drops on her high chair after she gets up. I'm saving money from doggy snack. Yeah!