Nadine's 2nd National Day Celebration

We started the day by bringing Nadine to the newly spruced up Lower Seletar Reservoir, which is just opposite our place.

And we went for the traditional National Day celebration in church. Last year, Nadine was a tiny baby who couldn't understand a thing about the celebration. This year, she had a ball of a time running around the back of the sanctuary during service, waving her flag, and clapping along with the singing and cheering.

But during dinner, out in the car park, she was hot, sleepy and cranky. Her mood only became better after people have cleared up and there was more fresh air, wind, and space. She started dancing to the music blasting from the speakers. And the more people clapped and cheered her on, the more she danced and spun around. Too bad Mummy was too tired to take photos of her dancing.

18 months

Height: 77.5 cm

Weight: 10.5 kg

She's saying more and more words by the day. Too many for Mummy to record. Mummy will probably start recording again when Nadine says her first 3-syllable-word, and when she strings words together to form a sentence.

Nadine's also learnt that she can choose and make decisions. She picks the shoes that she wants to wear now, and also the DVDs that she wants to watch. She's also very selective about who can carry her now. Which is both good and bad. Good coz it hopefully means she won't be carried away by a stranger easily. Bad coz she wants Mummy to carry her all the time. So tiring for Mummy!

Thank God Daddy tries and step in whenever possible. Nowadays on Sundays, Daddy will even take Nadine away into the play room to feed her lunch, so that Mummy can enjoy the sermon in peace! Thank you Daddy!

Mr Lee's 80th birthday celebration

2 Sundays ago, Mummy brought Nadine to her secondary school band instructor's 80th birthday celebration. It was an amazing celebration, and a gathering of alumni from the 70s to the most recent graduates.

Obviously Mr Lee means a lot to every one of the "old girls" present at the celebration. He didn't just teach us music. He taught us philosophies of life, integrity, the importance of pursuing excellence and how to be a good person - using principles from the bible, without directly preaching to us. So indirectly, Mr Lee led many of us to Christ. Mummy hopes that Nadine will also have such a good teacher in future, who will teach her wonderful values that will last a lifetime!

Mummy's batch of girls with Mr Lee

Nadine was happy just wandering around in the room. And never once did she worry about losing Mummy. Mummy's friends were so amused by Nadine's independence.

She also enjoyed looking at the Disney band jig-saw puzzle that was given to Mr Lee as a birthday present.

Durian!

Nadine had her first taste of durian 2 weeks ago. And just like Daddy and Mummy, she loves it!

LFC

Daddy bought this romper for Nadine when she was about 3 months old. It was bought online, from Liverpool's website. The size says "6 months" - but when the romper arrived, Daddy and Mummy thought - the 6-month-old babies in UK must have very weird bodies - long and skinny torso. Can't event figure out if the pants are supposed to be long, short or 3/4! Nadine could not fit into it until now - 17 months, going on 18.

The words that she has picked up in the last 2 weeks:

mai ("don't want" in Hokkien)

hua ("flower" in Mandarin)

cai ("veggie" in Hokkien)

powder

water

drum

peach

hi

mouse

fox

neck

head

eye

face

foot

toes

mouth

nose

clock

bike

egg

pear

comb

pen

hat

touch

fish (sometimes "ish)

and most surprisingly to Daddy and Mummy - nest - it's a word in a pack of flash cards that Mummy has been teaching Nadine with. But nest is such an obscure thing that Mummy never quite bother to explain what it is, and was definitely not expecting Nadine to pick up the word. But she did!

17 months

3 newest words that Nadine can say - watch (wat...ch), star (staaaar) and one (wan).

Other words she's learnt to say in the last month - bear, work, please (pleeeeessss), gong gong, che che, and bao bao (mandarin for carry).

She's picking up words faster and faster. Soon, it'll be hard for Mummy to record the words that she's starting to say. More importantly, Daddy and Mummy have to really watch what they say now!

2nd visit to the Zoo

Daddy and Mummy took Nadine to the zoo on Saturday, together with Ma-Ma. Nadine seemed to enjoy this visit better than the last. Last visit, she was only 10 months old, and couldn't recognize nor appreciate the animals. This time round, she could recognize the (white) tiger, (polar) bear, goat, horse and rabbit. That's almost all the animals she saw anyway. The weather was first scorching hot, and then it poured, and after that, the sun came out again. Not the best day to be out at the zoo.

Nadine enjoyed herself the most at Kidzworld, where there was a kids yoga session. She walked around the kids and two instructors while they were doing yoga, and had a ball of a time playing other games with the kids.

Hairy Fairy

Nadine's blessed with a full head of pretty hair, and people always wonder how Mummy or Bibi manage to get her to sit still to tie her hair. And most of Mummy's friends know Mummy doesn't have a lot of patience. So when Nadine goes out with complicated french plaits like this, they know it's done by Bibi.

And this is how Bibi does it.

The Sounds of Animals

Chinese

Nadine's grandparents speak to her in Mandarin. Sometimes, MaMa will speak to her in Hokkien, and PoPo will speak to her in Teochew.

Daddy and Mummy are hoping that Nadine's few hours' interaction with her grandparents every week will help her to build up a multi-lingual foundation. Cross fingers, toes and eyes.

Tonight, during dinner, when Daddy told Nadine there's no more rice, Nadine then said "mei you" - no more in Mandarin!

Daddy and Mummy broke into a huge wide grin!