The Bub in the Belly

Ipoh has a very comfortable feeling to it. Mixed with the modern shopping malls, you can still find a lot of old businesses and trades there. These are the street lamps that are found all over the city. Aren't they charming?


We arrived in good time to check in at the hotel and go for an early dinner, which was the famous "nga choy kai" or "beansprouts and chicken" at Lou Wong. Extremely satisfying. The rest of the evening was spent at my second uncle's house.

The next day (Wednesday), it was off to my third uncle's place which is nestled at the foot of the hills in Tambun. Very picturesque.



The expert gamblers' game of choice was mahjong. That's my third uncle, my second uncle's wife and Richard playing three-kaki mahjong.


Ryan had a minor upset when we first got there. He doesn't like people coming up to him and looking at him as if he is under a microscope, especially if they are also talking to him in loud voices, which unfortunately was what happened. Everyone was excited to see him and was fawning over him and talking to him excitedly. He just hated it and got upset. I took him into one of the bedrooms and gave him his Noddy Funbook so that he had something to focus on and so that he could tune out everything else. He was relaxed after a while and when I brought him back into the living/dining area, he was happy to see everyone and warmed up quickly, proceeding to play happily with my cousins. My uncle has a miniature schnauzer, like our dog Max, and Ryan was also happy to play with her.

The evening was set aside for my family's yearly reunion dinner. Despite starting the dinner in a slightly grouchy mood (because I roused him prematurely from his nap), Ryan regained his good spirits quickly.

After that, it was time for a bath with daddy!




Then it was time for other fun activities. Here's Ryan playing with his Noddy Funbook!


For lunch, we went to have dim sum at a restaurant near our place, although Ryan didn't eat much.


Being the eve of the Lunar New Year, it was a quiet day, with most restaurants and shops being closed. By the afternoon, the neighbourhood was pretty deserted. We spent the day at home, just relaxing and lazing about. Around teatime, we took Ryan to A&W!



My baby is three years old!


After dinner, we all went back to Richard's parents' place to wait for the Lunar New Year, as per tradition (this is supposed to give your parents long life). Richard played mahjong with his parents while I played with Ryan (not mahjong!).

It was a good day. Ryan was surrounded by love all day and he was happy and in a good mood from start to finish. It was a reflection of the journey to his 3rd birthday, which has been nothing but beautiful. Ryan has filled our lives and our hearts with nothing but joy.

I taught Ryan that the answer to the question, "How old are you?" is "I'm three years old" and I spent the whole day asking him that same question because I couldn't get used to the fact. My baby is three!

Happy 3rd birthday, son. We love you.

Chinese New Year celebrations go on for 15 days in Singapore. The official holidays last for only the first two days but celebrations start a few days before and continue for the rest of the 13 days, albeit in a slightly less intense fashion.

Yesterday (Sunday, 5 February 2012), we had a small gathering at our place with four other families. It was great fun, and I will put up a full post on it soon, after I get through the updates on our trip back to Malaysia.

This year, the first day of the Lunar New Year fell on Monday, 23 January 2012. We needed to be back in Malaysia in time for the traditional reunion dinner on Chinese New Year eve and so did everyone else so we expected the roads to Malaysia to be jammed up over the weekend. We decided to drive up the Friday before, which was a good decision, because it was a very smooth drive. We arrived in time to do some banking, have lunch at our neighbourhood coffeeshop and then we popped by Richard's sister's (Margaret's) house for a bit.

The next day, we lazed about at home. In the evening, we met up with Richard's parents for dinner, together with his sister Mary at Mama Mia Chinese Restaurant in PJ State. Here's Ryan tossing the "yee sang" at the dinner table.

However, try as we might to keep everything safely stored away till that red letter day, we still end up amassing knick-knacks here and there. We had this cabinet built (in our home in Malaysia) so that we could toss everything inside.


You can see, at the very top, some framed photographs taken when Ryan was still a baby. Below those, is this ceramic photoframe, which was a gift from Mary. We put in a photo of Ryan taken each month from birth till his first birthday.


Our wedding photo, taken in 2001.


Some books, lots of graphic novels.


Richard bought this Bang & Olufsen Beolit radio online, after scouring the internet. He bought two sets, from two different people outside of Singapore, and both were not working. He was undeterred and managed to hunt down an old guy in Singapore to repair them for him. Now, one set is in Singapore and one is here.




At the bottom of the cabinet, you can see a round white bowl. That was a housewarming gift from Sarah for our Singapore house. I felt it was too big to display in our Singapore house without risk that it would be accidentally smashed by either the pets or children, so I carted it back to Malaysia. Somewhere at the top of the cabinet is a pair of jade Chinese guard dogs which Richard's parents bought for us as a housewarming gift for our house in Malaysia.

These are wooden figurines from Sarawak, which are probably as old as I am. My family stayed there for a few years when I was very little.

Here's Ryan, 8 days before his 3rd birthday, reading BOB books from Scholastic. You can hear how precise he is with his pronunciation, enunciating the letter sound at the end of each word clearly.

Here's a Youtube video of Ryan playing with his Nikitin blocks. It's about 3:44 minutes long. It was taken on 13 January 2012, 9 days before his 3rd birthday.

Around 2:37 you can hear me say, "Good job!" Ryan corrects me by saying, "GREAT job."



There are a few types of Nikitin blocks. These are the pattern cubes which we use to form 2D coloured patterns. We play with these often although I generally prefer right-brain games at Ryan's age (I consider this a left-brain activity). We used these blocks during the left-brain segment in Shichida class sometime early last year or late 2010 (I can't recall now), although just once or twice. We no longer play with these in class. Since Ryan was about two and a half, the class has been doing 3D patterns with plain blocks - the blocks get stacked on top of each other in different formations.

Something fun today.

When I see ladies carrying huge totes, I always wonder what they have inside. I used to carry a lot around when I was younger, but as the years passed, my list of essentials shrank and the tote and I have parted ways. Now, I carry a small to medium sized handbag, and I try to keep the contents to a minimum. I just have my wallet, my phone, my blackberry, my business card holder, my house keys, my car keys, and sometimes a notebook.

Even when I became a mum, I never had to carry much around. Just a diaper and some wipes, and a blanket for breastfeeding. Ryan had no milk powder/bottle (that was me), no pacifier (that was also me) and no toys for entertainment (me, again). We never worried about getting dirty/wet and needing extra clothes - we just rolled with it. There was one time Ryan had to go topless while we finished up our outing. I wrapped him in his blanket while carrying him in my arms. A stranger came up to me and told me he would catch a cold. He didn't.

I never bought a diaper bag or any sort of dedicated bag for baby stuff, although I confess that, a few years back, when Richard took me to the Louis Vuitton store to buy a handbag for me, I did ask to see their diaper bag (when the sales assistant was wrapping up our purchase). I was more curious than anything, and any shred of interest I had in buying it evaporated the moment I saw it - it was big, bulky and heavy. Not for me.

Now, in addition to my handbag, I usually carry a bag for my camera, which I load with quite a lot of gear, plus I still carry Ryan around quite a lot. So I do try to keep the total weight of all our bags as low as possible. I don't need to carry a diaper and wipes anymore, we just keep a pack in the car. I also don't bring a blanket around anymore as Ryan doesn't nurse as often as before. Depending on the occasion, we might bring some stuff for Ryan to play with, like an alphabet set or a drawing pad.

Anyway, I was walking about today and my handbag was feeling so very heavy. I looked and discovered that there was so much junk inside! It still holds the evidence of our holiday plus I had a few errands to run which explains some of the stuff. Nevertheless, I think you'd be shocked at what was in my handbag (I certainly was!) so, just for fun, I thought I'd share it with you, to give you an idea of what I carry around as a mum of a three year old (yes, three already!).  Ready?

Here's the big picture.

2. Black business card holder (also contains my access pass to my office)
3. Blue notebook for scribbling ideas (not for notes).
4. Two ballpoint pens
5. Red packets
6. Blackberry (office issued. Extremely old generation - my office has offered to get me the latest one, but I'm just too used to this one to bother)
7. Frequent customer stamp cards (including one from Borders, which has closed all its Singapore stores)
8. Receipts from shopping, eating, etc.
9. Hairbrush
10. Under the hairbrush is a concierge card for a taxi from the Conrad Hotel (I had lunch there on Tuesday with clients)
11. Receipt from Casa Bom Vento because I still owe them the tray that the fish heads came on (from the curry fish head for the birthday bash)
12. Chopard watch, a gift from Richard which I carry around because I need to change the worn-out strap. I keep forgetting when I'm out in the shops so the watch keeps going in and out of my handbag.
13. Tag Heuer watch, also a gift from Richard. It's here because I took it off when I weighed myself two days ago (every gram counts!)
14. Two hair scrunchies
15. Two tubes of lip cream
16. A new eye makeup applicator
17. Some coins, which should have gone into my wallet
18. Pet Lovers Centre membership card and an expired SK-II card
19. A spare cashcard
20. Spare contact lenses
21. A birthday card for Ryan from his grandmother (my mum)
22. A pouch containing our bank account books and cheque books (had to do some banking today)

There's more...



31. Car key (at the top right, above the notebook)

In the interest of full disclosure, there was actually one more item (which I put away before I thought of taking these shots) - it was a set of photographs.

In my defence, I will only say that having this much junk in my handbag was unusual. Please believe me.

This post is a mish-mash of recent photos. Like many parents, I snap a million photos of the son (almost) everyday, and not every photo fits into a theme, so I thought I'd just throw them into one post.

This is Ryan's recent Lego Duplo creation. That's Buzz Lightyear at the top right corner, preparing to fly "To Infinity and Beyond!" We're not sure whether Ryan prefers Woody or Buzz at this point, but it sure is amusing to hear him exclaim, "To Innininy and Neyornnnn!" In December last year, we had thoughts of popping into Hong Kong Disneyland where they just opened up a section based on Toy Story, but we decided not to go just then. Maybe this year?

The next shot was taken at Beach Road Prawn Noodle Restaurant, which is near our home. Ryan loves chopsticks so he always collects a handful when there are some around.


There was a couple sitting at the next table and the lady apparently decided that I needed to be aware of some important things, so out of the blue...

Lady: Your son is very handsome.
Me (after looking around for the voice): Oh, thank you. (smile)
Lady: He will be a good speaker. (she says this in Mandarin)
Me: Oh (laughing a little), he is just starting to talk now. I'm still waiting! (smile)
Lady: Yes, he will be a good speaker because his upper lip points upward. (she says this in Mandarin and with absolute conviction)

(That's according to an old Chinese saying - if your upper lip (Cupid's bow) has an upward arch, you will be a good speaker.)

The next photo was taken at Tanglin Mall's snow village. I like this photo, despite the technical flaws, so it gets included! It's the expression on Ryan's face that brings me back to this photo again and again - so innocent and full of wonder.


We are still breastfeeding! More on that in a separate post.


There were a few weeks last month when Ryan liked to stuff his fingers into his mouth. And I'm not talking about sucking on a thumb, I mean five fingers at one time go into his mouth! Here he is in the car, playing with his fingers in his mouth and reading "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle.


Enjoying another book in the car. This was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", also by Eric Carle. Ryan turns the pages and prompts me to "read" the book to him while I drive. Yes, I know every word by heart. And so does Ryan! I'll try to get a video of him reciting the story!



Brushing teeth with daddy.


Some post-birthday bash photos here.

Fresh flowers - anybody knows what these are called?


The leftover curry from the curry fish head. After keeping it for a day or two in the hope that we'd find some way to consume it, we gave up and threw it all away.


A couple of nights after the birthday bash, the wind came howling through the house and lifted the inflatable bouncy castle off our terrace, depositing it in the bushes in the driveway. That shows how strong the winds were because that thing is heavy! Fortunately, Richard went out to the terrace in the morning to check on everything, otherwise we wouldn't even have realised that the bouncy castle had flown off.  On a previous occasion, the wind tried to take off with our sprinkle mat but that landed in the driveway too. Exciting living in the east. Anyway, here's Richard collecting the bouncy castle while I snapped a photo from our balcony.