Janine's "Report Card"

We just received Janine's End of Year Report from her childcare and I was just so amused as I read it. Thought I should type out the general commentary (from the report) here for memory's sake:

Janine displays a relaxed disposition and cooperates willingly in her environment. Janine participates positively in all activities, plays cheerfully, and is well liked by her peers. Janine enjoys her singing, entertaining us daily. We wish Janine all the best as she ventures into the big room.

I know that at home, Janine talks and sings non-stop - whether before she goes off to sleep, or when she's in the toilet doing her business, or when she's playing. I just did not realise that she does the same in childcare too! She "entertains" the childcare teachers?!? No wonder the teachers tell me that they just have to open the door to the 'small classroom' and they will hear Janine singing or talking before they even see her!

My babies are growing up!

Janelle is turning 5 years old next January and I just can't believe how time flies! She is starting Big School next year (kindergarten)! Gosh! So many people have told me about how children just seem to suddenly grow up once they start Big School, and to think it is now our turn to experience that!

She has just graduated from Prep and tomorrow marks her last school day in Pacific Hills. Next year, she will be starting Kindergarten in a public school near our place. I think I feel more sad than she does about finishing up her last day of school in PCHS! (children are basically more accepting of such changes), Here's Janelle posing with her "graduation certificate". 

Janine is turning 3 years old in a few weeks' time and she is also growing up so fast (too fast in fact!). Recently she has taken a great interest in drawing (probably rubbed off from jie-jie) and her scribbles have progressed to something more comprehensible. Here are some of her works:

1) Family picture drawn with four suns!

(from L to R: Janelle, Janine, Mummy, Daddy, Josiah)

Me: "How come my hair is so short?"

Janine: "Because you just cut your hair!"

Me: ??!!?

2) Siblings picture 

(Janine can amazingly draw her pictures upside-down as well as at a 90-degree angle!)

Janine's comment: Do you know why I'm so tall (in the picture)? Because I grew bigger already!!

3) Forbidden 'picture'

This is what happens when I take a 5-minute toilet break....

Laughter makes the heart merry

Josiah at 2.5 months old is easily tickled. It is such a delight to see him chuckle and laugh :)

Progression (or regression?) as a mother

I know that I have changed over the years - from being a mother of 1, to a mother of 2, and now a mother of 3. Other than this obvious change, I realised that my perspective and way of doing things seem to have changed too.

During Pregnancy
When pregnant with #1: The book "What to Expect While You are Expecting" was read almost every day, as frequently as my Bible!

When pregnant with #2: Referred to and read the book "What to Expect While You are Expecting" occasionally.

When pregnant with #3: Where's the book??

Breastfeeding

For baby #1: Express lots of breastmilk to store just-in-case. Dutifully sterilise, label, and pump!

For baby #2: Express some milk to store. The remainder of the expressed milk goes to #1 to drink!

For baby #3: Breastpump is there to "bai3 swee4" (ie. purely for display purposes) only. Starts to collect dust as it is barely utilised. After a few weeks, I decide to keep the breastpump away (and along with it the steriliser, bottle brush cleaner, bottle detergent, etc etc).

Baby's Routine

Baby #1: Established a routine for baby from newborn stage. Kept a record book to note down the time/frequency of pee, poo, feeds and sleep. Dutifully recorded everything down for a couple of weeks.

Baby #2: Tried to establish routine for baby. Kept a record book for 10 days, then gave up.

Baby #3: What record book?? 

Baby's Age

For baby #1: When people ask "How old is baby?", the answer is at the tip of my fingertips, ie. I can answer "6 weeks 3 days old" without so much of a pause.

For baby #3: When people ask "How old is baby?", I have to stop and think and work backwards from baby's birth date in order to give an estimated age (example: "baby is about 2 months-plus old"). 

Opinion on Captain Von Trapp of "Sound of Music"

When I had only 1 child, I thought that Captain Von Trapp's way of calling for his 7 children - by whistling and expecting them to march in line till they stand before him - was simply horrifying, inhumane and unacceptable. Now that I have 3 children, I'm starting to think that perhaps the whistling bit does make some sense. It is truly a fast and easy way of getting all your children to come to you! 

Josiah - 2.5 months old

Josiah at 2.5 months old can:

- lift his head and chest off the bed

- kick his legs such that he wriggles forward (when put on his tummy)

- turn his head and body all the way back to look and observe people, voices, sounds, etc.

- smile at the sight of my face and voice (yay!!)

- sleep through 8 to 9 hour stretch at night without a feed (praise God!)

He's a very good-natured and cheerful little boy. And when he cries (which is not that often), he does so in such a pitiful manner that you cannot help but want to pick him up and "sayang" him!

Snippets of the lives of our 3 Js

These are some of the things that we do on weekdays....

1) Put Josiah in all kinds of positions and take pictures of him

2) Take turns (and also fight over who goes first) to carry, kiss, and hug Josiah

3) Talk to Josiah

He can now gurgle the words "good" and "hi". 

4) Play with Josiah

We put him in the toy pram (Graco brand that cost $20 from KMart!) and the girls were absolutely thrilled to push him around. Poor Josiah! He gets to be the object of all the laughter and play. Thankfully he seemed comfortable in the pram and even looked like he was going to fall asleep in it!

The girls also enjoy doing funny things to Josiah like attaching this cardboard roll on his hand (Janelle's ingenious idea) and laugh at him while he waves it around. 

And to make it even more elaborate, we attach the balloon to it but Josiah couldn't move his hand with the extra weight attached!

After some insistence from me, Janelle removed the cardboard roll and put it on Josiah's foot instead! Josiah remained unperturbed. In fact, he seemed more relieved at being able to move his hand again now that the weight had been lifted off, and he could resume his favourite activity - staring at his fist!

5) Go for swimming lessons every Tuesday morning

Actually I wanted to take the girls out of swimming lessons after my parents left, but seeing how much they enjoyed it, I decided to bite the bullet and take them swimming. And we have progressed! I know that I have progressed because:

Week 1 (on my own):  the girls enjoyed themselves but I hated it....in fact, I was regretting being so crazy as to take 2 girls and a baby swimming on my own!

Week 2 (on my own): the girls enjoyed it and I was OK about it. Was getting used to the routine and it wasn't that bad after all.

Week 3 (on my own): the girls enjoyed it and so did I! I even had time to take pictures of them, as well as to enjoy an apple while they were swimming :) 

I suppose it's a matter of getting used to the routine and learning the smarter way of doing things 

And all Josiah did while his jie-jies swam was.....SLEEP (thankfully!)! 

These are just snippets of our lives when we're all at home. It can be fun, but madness at the same time! I have chosen to blog only about the fun bits of it because that's what I want to remember years down the road 

Josiah's new past-time

Recently, Josiah has found a new past-time! He can spend a considerable period of time just staring at his fist and that can keep him pretty occupied! I'm still amazed at how he can just lie down and 'entertain' himself for a good amount of time while I cook, feed the girls, do laundry, etc etc. Many-a-time, I even forget that he's still awake and left all by himself because he's so contented just being entertained by either his bug or bear-friends, or by his own fist and fingers. Hmm....here's some pictures of him enjoying his fist!

Our Daily Conversations

Took a video of my daily conversation with 9-week-old Josiah. He's now a very cheerful boy who loves to "talk" in response to our chatter! Can also hear Janine singing "Hey Diddle Diddle" in the background :)

Trip to Orange

We made a road trip to Orange, a suburb located in the Central West of NSW. It's about 3.5 hours drive from where we are, and we had a lovely time with our dear traveling companions! It was a simple, relaxing, free and easy trip :) The kids had loads of fun at the Adventure Playground, miniature train ride, and other playgrounds. The adults enjoyed the beautiful scenic drive, picturesque views and late night supper-cum-chit-chat sessions :)

 

Josiah was such a good boy during the car journey and hardly cried, which is quite unlike him. We attribute it to Janelle's simple prayer before the trip that went "Dear Jesus, we pray that Josiah will not cry in the car. Amen!". This is Josiah's first road trip at 2 months & 1 week old! We are really thankful for such a good-natured boy and he's now sleeping so well at night that he totally knocks out for 7-hour periods without a feed.

 

 

 

Who's who?

We have always thought that Josiah looks like his er-jie Janine. I dug through some old photos of Janine when she was a baby and voila - they both have gravity-defying hair!

I just love the way babies' hair can stand without any effort (and can't come down flat no matter how hard you try)!

Josiah - 2 months old

Josiah is now 2 months old and we're starting to see a bit of his personality. We thank God for a generally good-natured boy (answered prayer!) and who's extremely cute (in our biased opinion). He can:

- lie on his playmat and stare at his bug-friends (ladybird, caterpillar, fly, etc) for a good 30 minutes.

- sleep through 6 hours at night without a feed.

- put his right fist into his mouth to suck (he's an obvious right-hander!)

- smile when Janine plays "round and round the garden goes the teddy bear...." with him

- grin when we call his Chinese name Yi4 De2 (apparently he finds his Chinese name extremely amusing)

We are thankful that he sleeps so well at night, and that he's so good-natured that he'll allow his jie-jies to carry him in all strange positions and not complain at all! 

Revamped cot

Thanks to Josiah's Grandma and Grandpa, we do not have to contend with pink cot bumpers for him. Josiah has got a brand new cot sheet set - courtesy of his grandparents. It sure helps a lot in preventing him from bumping his head against the sides of the cot! 

Patriotic Singaporeans

Whoever said that growing up in Australia means we cannot be patriotic Singaporeans? We decided to teach our girls the national anthem and they picked it up so fast! Actually it started when they were given some Singapore flags, and they started singing the Australian anthem as they waved the Singapore flags. *faint* We then decided they need to learn the Singapore anthem since we are Singaporeans after all :)

Josiah's cot

Decided to take a picture of Josiah's cot because it is probably the last time his cot will have this 'minimalist' look without the cot bumpers! For the past week or two, Josiah has been "crawling" from one end of his cot to the other! We put him on his tummy to sleep as he sleeps much better this way, and one of the 'side effects' is that he ends up pushing himself till he moves the whole length of the cot. *gosh* 

Today his head got stuck in between the pillow and the bolster, as he had pushed himself right to the corner of the cot, and he started to "eh eh" and get angry. Haha :) Was quite a funny sight! We need to put up cot bumpers already. I never had to use cot bumpers so early for our 2 girls! Josiah is only 7 weeks old and needs cot bumpers?! Oh well, might as well put them to good use by using them early! 

Passport Picture - finally!!

It's been impossibly difficult to take a decent photo of Josiah to be used for his Australian passport application. Not only does the background have to be white/light-coloured, he has to be looking at the camera with head not tilted/slanted, and with his mouth CLOSED! That's the hardest bit! How on earth do you get a baby to close his mouth and take a picture? 

After several weeks of taking "failed" pictures of Josiah - either with him sticking out his tongue, head tilted, or arms flailing all around, I have decided to modify a picture of him that looks most decent out of the almost-hundred shots I've taken. So here it is....

This is the original photo from which the passport photo was derived:

Well, my photoshop skills aren't exactly good, and I have tried very hard to doctor the background such that it looks even. I am hoping hard that they will not reject this passport photo, if not I'll have to start all over again!!