The Bub in the Belly

My weekend was one of those which had me lurching from heartstopping high to heartwrenching low, and back round again. Sigh. They hit us every now and again, don't they?

Well, let's focus on the highs. There were enough of those. There always are.

First up, I made a pair of pants for Ryan, which is the pair he's wearing in the photo below. Richard is wearing a matching pair from Uniqlo. Richard bought his pair first, and when I saw them, I was inspired to make Ryan a pair to match. I love how it turned out! They aren't exact matches - the design is different and Ryan's is more of a turqoise, while Richard's is more blue. I used a pattern called the W Pants (by Melissa of Melly Sew for Blank Slate Patterns).

The weekend is here again! Yay yay. No matter how hectic the work week gets, we can always count on the weekend coming by, eh? What are your plans? We don't have any plans and, well, that's the way it should be sometimes. We do have some vague intentions, so we'll see.

There are lots of photos in this post, but I'm afraid they're all kind of the same. Heh heh. To "make up" for my indulgence, I've penned some thoughts on something that I've been tossing around in my head lately so do stay with me.


Yesterday, I was thinking about how grown-up the littles have become.

Look at my babydoll - not quite a baby anymore, although more and more a doll. Already she is walking around, "like a boss", they would say. Already I can see the girl emerging. Already she is getting her toenails painted - she came home yesterday with a fresh pedicure!
And my son. My little, little man. Our conversations have levelled up now. Ryan is able to express himself better now and so I have more insight into his thinking, what he goes through in school, how he feels about things and people. I'm getting to know him again - it is such a different experience compared to getting to know him from his non-verbal actions and reactions. This boy is funny, smart, and insightful, as all children his age are.

Yes, I am amazed how time has flown by. I am amazed at how fast children grow. Yet, thinking about it now, I harbour no resentment at the time flown by, no wistfulness at the years past and no longing for what was before. Because I feel that I milked every drop of those fleeting moments.

Beyond changing diapers and making sure they were fed, I do feel that I fully participated in their growing up and I don't feel that I missed anything significant. It's the same feeling I have about my school days or my life pre-children - I look  back fondly on those times but I don't miss them, because I lived them to the fullest, savoured every moment.

It hasn't been easy though. Some days, I go through the motions without really thinking. I drive the littles off to preschool/nanny, lost in my own thoughts, stressed about the work day ahead of me. I zone out while I wait for Ryan to finish his meal. I buy books for the littles without realising that I bought the same ones previously - oh where is my mind? Heehee. I'm getting better at living in the present, I promise (see my new year's resolution for 2011).

And really, there is so much to enjoy in the present, isn't there? The wonderful, wonderful sensation of babydoll leaning into me and melting into me for a hug. The adorableness of her toddling away as she perfects her walking. Seeing her toss all her finger food to the dog, so happy that the dog is willing to come near her. Hearing her say "bye-ber" when I talk about changing her diaper. Feeling on top of the world when, from across the room, she sees me and calls "Mama" with the hugest grin possible, her finger pointing in the air as she walks, as fast as her little legs can go, to get to me.

And my little Ryan - ever the perfectionist. Once he was in a group of children and they all walked past a structure with a corner protected by a corner guard which had come out of place. He was rushing to me, just like the rest of the children were all rushing to their parents after class. He was not the first one to walk past the out-of-place corner guard but he was the only one who stopped in his tracks to fix it. Even the adults hadn't bothered. My little four year old: the youngest kid there, the oldest soul around.

Now he's pondering the mysteries of the world and telling me, in a very thoughtful tone, that his French fries aren't French because "French is when you go to a French shop and buy French things."

It is a lovely time to be their mama, just as any time would be (for a similar sentiment, see here).

And oh! The sewing! Babydoll is wearing a top I made for her a few weeks ago using the Geranium pattern by Rae Hoekstra. If it looks familiar, you probably saw it in this post when Rachel went to Hokey Pokey a few weeks ago.

I haven't been able to give proper updates on Ryan because his recent news mostly revolve around his modelling/acting, and these projects are always hush-hush up till the time they are launched. Last week, Ryan was busy with a photoshoot and some voice-over work for a TV commercial, plus an audition for another role. I will update again once the projects are launched.

In the meantime, here are some photos of him in the audio suite at the recording studio.

Ryan had another audition in the evening today. As he was also scheduled to have a sports session with Shaws Little League before that, I was concerned that he would be too tired for the audition. So I kept him out of school and we spent the morning together at home.

He made breakfast for us. Yums.


We didn't do anything too strenuous. Mostly we played with blocks and other toys.


We did some work with Montessori material - the pink tower and the brown stairs. We also did some math work. Here he was, learning about place value.



Clapping hands when he realised that he'd got it!




Here he was saying that 1785 is a very big number!

In recent weeks, we have noticed babydoll exhibiting a lot more awareness of her routine and what happens around her. She's always been very observant and now that she's mobile, she has the power to make things happen for herself. For example, when we tell her to put her shoes on, she will toddle off to the shoerack to fetch her shoes, and when we tell her to take them off, she will sit down and undo the straps on her shoes.

When she's hungry and I ask her if she'd like something to eat, she will nod and toddle off to the kitchen and point in that direction. When we turn up at her nanny's to fetch her home, she is the first one out the door because she knows it's time to go.

Here she was, shopping last week.


Haha! Love that shot!

She still loves her stacking very much and now we offer her the chance to stack with precision - like fitting rings on a rod.




Babydoll is very sociable and enjoys being with people. She does have moments when she just wants to be with her mama/papa but, generally, she is good with everyone and anyone. Here she was, outside Paragon Shopping Centre last weekend, sitting next to a stranger. This was after she spent ten minutes flirting with diners at a restaurant in the basement - she was standing outside the restaurant and reaching through the partitions to shake hands with the diners inside.

We brought her to the playground at Telok Kurau Lorong J two weekends ago. It was her first time there and she had a great time.




I chuckle everytime I see this photo of her at the bottom of the slide. I love her expression!





Now that babydoll is mobile, I am a little less strict about supervising her. Before this, she was always accompanied. Always. Just like Ryan was. Now, I do leave her in the company of her brother sometimes, while I run upstairs to fetch something or make a dash to the toilet. One morning, I left the two of them in the living room while I went upstairs to do something quickly. When I came back downstairs, all was quiet and my two munchkins were gone! I realised that they had gone to the playroom and, as I approached the playroom, I heard them chatting to each other - Ryan telling his sister about the letters of the alphabet and Rachel going, "Ah!" at the appropriate moments.


Lovely! I am looking forward to seeing them playing together more and more and, hopefully, becoming the best of friends. They do fight - oh boy, do they fight! Babydoll gives as good as she gets so I usually don't intervene except to say, "No pushing" or "Talk nicely". I also say "No fighting" but that only means no physical blows are exchanged - I still let them fight it out otherwise. They usually fight over toys - one of them will be playing with a toy and the other will want the same toy so they end up in a tug of war. And don't think that Rachel is always the one trying to snatch the toy away - Ryan is just as guilty of doing that! Never a dull moment with these two!

Recently, I re-started Ryan's math work. I re-looked the activities that I offered to Ryan and I tried to understand why a particular activity may or may not convey the intended lesson. Take, for example, the basic counting exercise - present some items or a picture of some items to the child and ask him to count the items. This is a typical activity and I'm sure that you see it all the time.

I had initially thought that if Ryan could count off seven items where there were seven items, that meant that he understood seven as a quantity. I was wrong. Chanting one to seven in such a situation was merely rote counting. Simply rattling off the numbers in sequence does not mean that he learns quantity. In the way that he recited one, two, three, four, to seven as he pointed to each item, he could have equally have recited do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. Or red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Or something even more random - Peter, Paul, Mary, Joseph, Ryan, Richard, Rachel. You get what I mean?