T-shirt project: Hands

A month of confinement in winter means our activities are pretty much limited to indoor projects. Its hard to keep our interaction "educational". I feel quite guilty that sometimes all we do is sit together and watch his favourite tv program. I always think tt I should be showing him flashcards to increase his literacy,teach him how to sing and count to 100 or something. I try but most of the time he runs off and I lose patience. The incentive to keep trying decreases with each attempt.

But one of the things we do a lot is create art pieces because it keeps him interested. In our latest project I bought a couple of plain Ts and fabric paint. In our first attempt he wanted an outline of his hand and mine. He then helped to create these beautiful blotches all over the sleeves and back using his palms and fingers. I won't say its nice but I praised him for his attempt at creative conceptualisation. Looking forward to create the next T.

Lilybuff

10 days old!!

This household lasted 10 days with a newborn! All thanks to great helpers and cooperative kids.

Also, happy to announce that she will now be known as "Lilybuff" on the blog because that's what Mountain Boy calls her. A huge upgrade from Baby 2 in my opinion.

The one before I popped

Picture taken the day before birth against the background of yellow fall leaves. Today I look out my window and everything is bare.

Winter is coming (reference Game of Thrones fans out there)...

Rockstar!

Mountain boy lovessss putting on hairgel. He feels instantly perky when he wears his hair up. What a vain pot!

The Lactationator returns...

Yummy...

Siblings

Mountain boy has been great at being a big brother! He is a curious little munchkin and wants to see everything that's going on. He calls his sister "chute" (cute) and kisses her a few times each day. Apparently at school he was so proud to be called "哥哥" and was beaming from ear to ear all the time.

He likes carrying his "mei mei" but gets bored quickly n says "dowan dowan". He says her name is "E-li-ba-buff" emphasis on buff so its quite hilarious.

Of course he gets jealous too but the occurrences are minimal and reasonable. Let's hope this continues..

Elizabeth Ng

I can't remember if I've announced Elizabeth's arrival to the blog readers yet, but here she is. My beautiful daughter.

She was born in the morning of Nov 14, 2011. She weighs 2.6kg and is 50cm long. We've both returned home and recuperating as well as we possibly can.

I'll share the birth story soon.

Fireworks

The budding artist displays his masterpiece with immense pride.

He is down with this mega terrible throat infection so no school and art class this week. I very reluctantly took out an old paint set and let him do his own thing expecting a catastrophic clean up afterwards, surprisingly he didn't go smack an swish swosh on my paper walls. In fact the paint never went beyond my coffee table.

For this piece, he painted each of his finger a different colour and went "stamp stamp stamp", the colours came out beautifully like fireworks exploding. He had a little help from mommy but he did it mostly by himself.

Dadong duo

Nice picture of father n son at dadong roast duck restaurant.

Letter to Mountain Boy: We will always love you

Dear Mountain Boy,

the past 2 days have been particularly out of the ordinary for the both of us...I don't know if it's because I made you watch Finding Nemo that made you fear losing me, or that you are sensing the imminent arrival of your younger sister. Either way, you are not letting me out of your sight from the moment you see me. You're grabbing on to my thighs when i want to take a bath, you're hanging on tight to my hands when we go out. There are moments where you bury yourself in my chest and sob like i'm gonna leave you.

You know what baby boy, I will be here for you as long as i'm alive, and for as long as you want me in your life. It hurts me more than you know when i think about how you might assume that i won't love you as much when your sister comes. I wish, I really wish, that you can be my only child forever so you'll never have to "share" our love.

Let me tell you the truth. You will have to learn how to share your toys, share the time you have of us, share your food, your clothes, your belongings, but you'll never ever have to share our love for you. It doesn't work that way and you'll only understand the day you become a parent. When i gave birth to you, I also gave birth to a whole new depth of emotions that i never had before, i.e. you helped me experience a new type of love, i didn't have to take love away from someplace else, i just have more. In the same way the birth of your new sister will bring on additional love in all three of our lives- your dad, myself and especially you. You will be a big brother!

A lot of people who know you including the teachers at school and us believe that you will be a wonderful brother. You are already very good at sharing and helping. You are always cheerful, you are kind and gentle, you have no idea how much joy you give me everyday.

My baby boy. We love you. You'll always be special in our eyes.

Kiss kiss,

mama

Feeling a lot better

After laying in bed for 2 days, and taking several doses of medication including ventolin puffs, I am feeling a lot better today. Hope baby girl's immune system aint as screwed as mine has been this pregnancy. Mama lives to fight another day!

Sick mama

Dunno what hit me but I'm suddenly mega mega ill. I've had a cough for 3 months intermittently now, I've taken a dose of antibiotics just 2 weeks ago and I'd most likely be given a 2nd dose today. Haven't felt this terrible in a few years but worst of all I feel so guilty for not being able to spend time w mountain boy and for taking all the drugs that has some sort of risk to baby girl. I'm in hell right now.