Jimmy, Margaret and their children Jerica, Malcolm and Justin, came down to spend Merdeka Day with us. Richard's parents also came down with Richard's sister, Mary, so we had a happy full house.
This is Ryan having a suck on some melon during family dinner at Aquamarine last night. He had some honeydew and some rockmelon.
We went to Barcelos at Vivocity yesterday for dinner. Ryan joined us at the table as usual and we let him try the chicken meat from our soup.
This morning we went to the hawker centre at Tiong Bahru market and Ryan had the julienned carrots from our breakfast. (Yes, he is wearing the same top from yesterday...)
We drove back to Singapore yesterday. Ryan had a slight temperature when he woke up so we let him sleep it off and he was fine when he woke up this morning. We enjoyed our trip very much and are already looking forward to our next one!
Here's a photo taken yesterday when he woke up with a slight temperature. Doesn't look too bad huh?
Two significant milestones today. First one, Ryan went for his first swim in a swimming pool. All the previous sessions in the baby swimming tub must have built up his water confidence for he was very comfortable kicking and splashing about. He was a little fussy at first because the water was cold but once he adjusted to it, he had no problems at all.
After the swim, Richard dried Ryan off and put dry clothes on for him. That's when Ryan suddenly said "Papa!" very loudly! Richard couldn't stop grinning!
Sleeping in - one of the luxuries of being on holiday.
We had dinner with Ryan's granduncle Peter and his family and Ryan's maternal great grandmother last night. It was a very enjoyable night, so much so that I forgot to take photos, which I actually really wanted to do.
In other news, as we don't have a baby bathtub in our KL place, we have been standing Ryan up in the big bathtub and hosing him down with the showerhead - he absolutely loves it!
We had planned to spend the week of Singapore National Day in KL in order to attend to some matters pertaining to our properties there. Coincidentally, we were told that Richard’s mother had scheduled a minor operation for herself that week so we were happy that we would be there with her during that time.
Ryan hardly watches television, simply because Richard and I don't watch much television, and even when the television set is on, Ryan doesn't pay much attention to it. We do, however, have one set of DVDs for Ryan to watch. It is a programme to teach babies to read and it's called, what else, "Your Baby Can Read". The parent is supposed to watch the DVD together with the baby and read the words out aloud and do the accompanying actions. We started Ryan on this programme when he was about a month old and, at first, he didn't want to sit through the entire show. Gradually, he started paying more and more attention and lately, he's even been smiling and grinning at certain parts.
Generally however, I think that he's getting bored of it. Here he is watching the programme, looking very much like he would rather be doing something else.
[Update: We stopped using this programme after a few months because, for various reasons, we did not feel that this approach was right. It was actually this moment in this photo which convinced me that we should stop. Please read this post for our reasons.]
We had lunch at the Tanglin Mall food court before Ryan's Gymboree session. Again, we gave Ryan the sliced cucumber that came with our chicken rice. Again, none of it was actually eaten, but I think he got some juice out of it.
Here are some photos from today's Gymboree session.
The first thing we noticed when Ryan moved up to Level 2 was that his nametag is now stuck on his back (Level 1 nametags go on the baby's blanket). 
Daddy is the wind beneath his wings...har har har.
I think he likes this exercise. He can spend quite a long time doing this.
Tired out after the class
Many people have asked how Ryan takes to our pets, Max the dog and Tiger the cat. (Many people have also asked how Max the dog and Tiger the cat take to each other, but that's another story.)
Anyway, Ryan is quite interested in the pets. Whenever they walk past him, Ryan will stop whatever he's doing and watch them intently. Ryan shows no signs of fear of them whatsoever. He accepts, observes and learns about them, in the same way that he accepts, observes and learns about everything in this brand new world of his.
On their part, the pets have accepted Ryan in their lives as well. Most amazingly, Max has understood that Ryan is part of the family - Max has always been protective and fiercely possessive of me to the point that he doesn't like it if another dog comes near me. But, he welcomed Ryan into the family and he occasionally gives Ryan a sniff and a lick. Tiger was a little freaked out the first few times he heard Ryan crying - he thought it was another cat! But he's all adjusted now and he largely ignores Ryan because Ryan's lap isn't big enough for him to curl up in.
