All In A Day's Work

This Elmo tent sits in a corner of her playroom and it's her current favorite hiding place during hide and seek, does not make the best hiding spot as she will burst out from the tent either from the opening or just flip the whole thing up, laughing.

So she was playing hide and seek with me this morning and she covered herself with the tent instead and did a peek a boo. We were in the 'gotcha' mood and took a lot of pictures with the camera phone. This is what she did today...

'Rise and shine. Sun on my bum, time to wake up from my beauty sleep.'

'A cup of hot milk to start the day.'

Getting some of my Milo. Chloe wants to taste everything I eat and I let her so long as it's not going to hurt her, say like too spicy stuff.

'Hmm... my must have in the mornings.'

'Let's put on some make-up before we hit the road. Starting with the eye shadows.'

Yap, she is on the toilet bowl, playing with my make-up.

'Hey! Don't disturb me, I got some sparkles on my hair now.'

'Done!'
(Check her forehead and left cheek. Brown stain above lips, Milo.)

'Lipstick! Almost forgot about this one.'

She opened the cap but didn't know how to get the lipstick out, so she poked her finger inside and smudged some on her face instead. Yes, my lipstick is no longer a stick. :)

'This is where I work. Let's see... you need to have some extra space between the stations and walkway...'

Imitating Simon, she pushed him off his working desk and took over. Looking every bit the little designer, moving the ruler around, poking the buttons on the calculator and scribbling all at the same time.

'Almost done, just a little bit more to go.'

'My after lunch dessert. A tub of yogurt a day keeps the doctor away too.'

'Some R & R after lunch. I'm watching this one today. Someone play it for me, please.'

DO NOT DISTURB.

Afternoon siesta

At the Beach

Sand! Sea! Sun! Oh how I missed the beach... we used to spent our Sundays at East Coast Beach, skating, running, catching up with friends over long breakfast, swimming, suntanning, from 9am-9pm, basically we are 'Sundays Beach Bums'.

Well, I need to reminisce a little since East Coast Beach is the place where I met and made lots of very good friends, learning how to skate and swim in the open sea, train for marathons and where I met Simon. Yes, I picked him up at the beach. Haha...

The last time we were strolling by the beach was last Father's Day, Chloe was still in the stroller, 9 months old. We are back on the beach with a bag of beach toys and a very excited Chloe, ready to build some castles and palaces.

'Hmm... What should I do first? Dig a hole or sift the sand?'

Chloe's a little worried and reluctant to walk onto the sand when we first got there. She was frowning and shaking her head and I thought she's ready to burst into tears. We take the next step forward with her leading me. Within a few minutes, we are feeling the grainy sand between our toes. She was a little squirmy initially and I took off my sandals to show her it is so fun to sink your whole feet into the sand.

I think she is a little lost as this is a very huge sand pit compared to sand tub in school and with so many tools laying in front of her, she's having a hard time deciding what to use first.

'I need more water for a bigger castle.'

See how comfy and at home she is now on the sand. Digging, pouring and even throwing handful of sand around. I scoop a pail of seawater and what happened next was, she dipped the spade in and rinsed it, then she dipped her whole hand in and tasted it. If I were to give her a spoon, I'm sure she'll be slurping it up. Later on, she was so happy that she poured the pail of water over the body. Bottoms up!

'Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man...'

'I'm not going any nearer.'

All the time while we were digging and building, I was introducing the sea and the waves to her. The pail of seawater was a start to show her that it's just water, just that it's salty and it does not comes from the tap. She finally walked closer to the waves but retreated when the waves came splashing a bit too close to her comfort zone. But still a good start.

'Ooooo... but this looks so fun! Am I missing something?'

She held out her almost empty pail and wanted me to refill it. I pointed to the sea and held out my hand, telling her that we can go together. Surprise, she stood up, held out her hand, took hold of the pail and trod very carefully towards the sea in small steps.

'The waves! They are wetting my feet, so fun.'

See! Not so frightening after all right? She was bouncing and going goo-goo-gah-gah over the waves. I have to hold on to her hand as she was ready to charge towards the sea. That's what happened when she gets over the initial inhibition.

'I'm not going back without having a dip in this huge tub!'

A pair of very happy and hungry beach bums. Time to change and feed the hungry people.

Body Art

This is a bad picture with poor lighting but if you were to look carefully, she has orange marks on her 2 legs. Eh, eh... not cane marks. Haha... She wanted to draw but I was too lazy to get the 'mahjong paper' downstairs so she has to make do with a piece of paper which she considered too small.

Unleashed your creativity.

Nice body markings. Instructions on the box of markers says 'Non-toxic and washable'. So fine if she stick it in her mouth but the washable part, hmm... dunk her in the bath and the ink comes off but not those on her clothes.

We love to draw on our body.

Doc's Time

How to kill your time while waiting at the pediatrician clinic?

#1 . You take a number and hope that every patient is only going to spend 2 minutes in the consultation room. (Fat hope.)

#2. We go for snacks at the cafe.

#3. Be really patient and have a bag of tricks to keep Miss Sunshine happy ...

Plan A. Keeping the little mischief nice and cool with a cup of ice cubes.

Plan B. Hand her your bag and let her dragged along the corridor 'to do her shopping' while I pray that it comes back unscathed

Plan C. Catching up with technology. Fiddling with the PDA phone, pray that she don't delete any important stuff. (This will never happened with Simon holding on the dear phone for life. :))

And finally after 2 over hours, it's our turn... phew... thank goodness it's for her booster jab.

Chloe reaching for the the stethoscope . That little green cooler box on the left contains her jabs. Moments later, angry cries and two fat tear drops cos we have to grab hold of her hands and legs to stop her from fidgeting but everything is solved with a little bag of animal crackers.

Zoo

We spent Labour Day at the zoo and Chloe had so much fun. It was a super duper hot day and really crowded too but the animals were all out in full force. We saw the keepers feeding the monkeys and watched the elephant show. We even managed to catch a glimpse of the cheetah during the tram ride which never showed up during our last few visits.

One boo-boo, the cafe ran out of so many kinds of food from the menu during lunch time. How can you have a whole tray of chicken curry and no rice? And that's special of the day. Miss I-Love-Carbs got to make do with fish and chips, she ate a whole piece of the fish.

The white tiger. What's your secret to whitening?

The orang-utan taking shelter amidst the foliage.

Waiting for the tram to arrive.

'Gotcha!'
We decided to have a little fun posing for pictures. Never thought we will get such a funny shot since Simon was just clicking away randomly. So candid. :)

Trying on my sunglasses which is too wide for her face... I think Chloe looks like a little boy in this picture. Hmm...

At the polar bear exhibit. The poor guy inside look so hot and bored.

A must do! Take a peek in the shop. Here's our little shopping queen with her loot. No, no we did not buy them, just props for the pictures. On Loan. Chloe was walking around the shop carrying the tiger making 'Grr..rr! Grr..rr!' sounds and as for the bear, mama was the one who puts it on.

Waiting patiently for her Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. Notice the new slippers? The moment I showed her the slippers, she dropped everything, lifted her leg and wanted me to out them on. She then signed to ask me to pay for them.

Waiting patiently again for Simon to drive the car over.

'Mama, the car is here. Let's go!'

Working for food and milk

Miss Chloe is really helpful or rather a very busybody. She wants sweep the floor, help me shell the peas, cook and clean. She fights for the clothe, the mop and the spatula. I hope she will be shooing me away, fighting to do all these some 15 years later. 16 years old, can cook a decent meal and scrub the toilets, yah?

At the toy shop the other day, she was 'ironing' a romper like a pro with the plastic iron on the board. All of us had a good laugh as she took her work so seriously, smoothing out the lines on the romper first before 'ironing' it and placing the iron back on the holder nicely. Simon thought part of her daily routine includes sitting by the side of the ironing board watching me do the ironing. No way, I'm very anal about lines on my clothes, so no one is to distract me while I do the job. Anyway, she would never sit quietly and watch.

So to keep her busy or entertained, I let her throw her soiled diaper every morning, put her pyjamas into the laundry basket and throw bits and pieces of paper into the dustbin.

Wiping the floor while watching Mickey Mouse, multi-tasking. The mop is adjusted to her height and she loves doing this, actually she kind of re-distribute the dust around.

'Find me some leaves to sweep. '

'Ah-ha! I spot something under the chair.'
(See busybody #2 sniffing on the right.)

Wiping her toys.

Making sure that every piece is thoroughly clean.

Mum's Birthday Celebration

We had a nice family dinner to celebrate mama's birthday, buffet style. Food is good and as usual a little greedy pig in the family over-indulged himself.

Chloe enjoying her own mini buffet platter. Like mama, she loves her sweets too.

Clap, clap... send in the biggest lobster.

Happy Birthday Mama!

The birthday girl. Ahem, woman. :)

Mama and Papa

The chopped head... they called it 'magazine style'. While the adults dined, Chloe entertained herself by taking pictures. She made everyone squat down to her height for pictures, actually everyone did it without protest. With that smile, she gets everything.

Acting cute, posing for Chloe. Yes, she held the camera and pressed the button all by herself.

Dadad's turn to pose for his princess.

Where is the bubble lift?

And one with mama.