Aaron - 21 months old

Aaron, at 21 months old, is expressive and responsive. A great fun to communicate and play with. We love watching him playing with Cheh-Cheh. They seem to understand each other so well.

Here's him mimicking different sounds animals. He's been able to do this for 2-3 months, but I just haven't had a chance to video it. Finally captured it today.

Weight: 10 kg

Height: ~82 cm

"White" rabbit

Nadine gets Chinese homework every Friday. It's actually just a picture for her to color, with an accompanying Chinese rhyme or song that she'd have been taught during the week. The objective of the homework is to encourage parents to revise the Chinese rhyme/song with the kids.

Last Sunday, I had to coerce her to do her colouring. She did it reluctantly. Coloured the rabbit's head yellow for a bit, then decided to colour other parts. After she completed the ears, tail, eye, carrot and ground, she said she's done.

I said to her, "what about the body?"

Her reply, "rabbit is supposed to be white like that!"

Mental note to self - I must not let my daughter out-smart me. Not yet!

Nadine's 1st classical concert

About a month ago, Daddy & Mummy brought Nadine to watch her 1st classical concert. It was a solo concert by Mummy's friend's very talented 9-year-old daughter.

Nadine was totally mesmerized by Lauren, even though the 45 min concert was a bit too long for her. She became restless after 15 min. But as soon as the concert ended, she rushed to the front, and wanted to take photos with Cheh-Cheh Lauren.

Here's one of the songs that Lauren performed - Time to say goodbye:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h9UqpPc2kI

Daily battles

Since after the March holidays, Nadine has refused to go to school. Every morning, I will have to battle with her. It's easy on some days, and extremely exasperating on some. Worst days are when she screams and wails and had to be carried in by her teachers.

She's given a few reasons for not wanting to go to school - tired, don't like certain friends, don't like her teacher because she now spots a short hair-do, her classmate is naughty, etc. The most consistent and regular one - she doesn't like her Chinese teacher, coz she keeps speaking to Nadine in Chinese!

While she picks up English easily, even with long words like bracchiosaurus and triceratops, she seems to have a lot of difficulties with Chinese. Or maybe its just her resistance with the language. She speaks Chinese with an ang-moh twang and doesn't like to hear it, even on tv or radio.

Initially, we'd wanted to send her for Chinese class after the March holidays. But looks like we better postpone that for a while, since she already dislike the language so much. Sigh ..... perhaps we need to start speaking to Aaron in Mandarin, so that he will have a better chance of liking the language early in life!

Athletic Aaron

 Aaron is blessed with very athletic genes. He started walking at 9 months, and before that, was crawling around like a little lizard. Can't remember when he started climbing, but he sure is a good and determined climber!

Here's him, at Legoland's Duplo Playtown, very determined to climb up the pretty high (for him) stationary cart, again and again. Boundless energy!

Legoland

Nadine's been asking to go to Legoland for a long time. We finally decided to make a trip there on Good Friday, even though we were wary that it's too close an experience to Tokyo Disneyland. We consciously reminded ourselves that it will be a very different experience.

The first thing that caught the kids' eyes were the driving schools. Aaron was too young even for the junior school, so could only watch from Jie-Jie from the side.

While queuing for her turn, Nadine had already decided that she wanted to drive the blue car. And when her turn came, she ran for the blue car, even though it was the last car. She ran in such a hurry that I thought all she could see was blue. But when I told her to remember to wave to us when she approaches our side, she said to me, "Ya, Mummy, I'm #3 ok!" Didn't realise she was so observant!

After Jie-Jie's car drive, it was Di-Di's turn to go for his favourite ride - the train ride. We queued for about 45 min! Kept telling ourselves, and the kids, that queuing is part of the theme park experience.

Nadine took this artistically-framed photo during the train ride.

The kids' favourite part of the park was definitely Duplo Playtown, a huge indoor playground designed for younger kids. We got there just before it started to pour, and so was stuck there for about an hour. And the kids just ran and ran and played and played for that whole hour, almost non-stop!

Aaron went for all the vehicles .... 

and slides. 

There was also a mini train ride in Duplo Playtown, that didn't allow adults on the train. But Jie-Jie was game enough to go on the ride with her brother. And they both enjoyed the ride so much! 

And to round off the day, we went shopping for lego sets, of course! Nadine chose a mermaid with swimming pool set, while Aaron, being Aaron, picked the car cum airplane set.

The kids were of course, oblivious to the heat and rain. They had such a good time. Nadine was also attracted to the pictures of the prospective Legoland Hotel, which will have a princess-themed room. She kept repeating throughout the day that she'd want to go and stay in the princess room.

Actually, it is a very good theme park for young kids. And so near to Singapore. So we actually converted our 1-day-pass to an annual pass! Yes, Legoland, we will be back, despite the unforgivable heat!

Aaron - 20 months old

20-month-old Aaron can string words together to make mini sentences:

"want some biscuit / apple / rice / shower"

"wanna watch"

"want to carry"

"see car car / bus / taxi / choo choo train"

"I don't want"

"put cream"

"daddy, wake up"

"fix it"

"fix the train"

"sweep the floor"

"let's go"

"want eat. some more. rice."

Besides cars, he's also into trains. He loves his Thomas the Train set, and plays with them at least once a day. He also copies whatever the Jie-Jie does - climbing, colouring, cutting, cycling, etc, etc. In that way, he's picked up a lot of things from Jie-Jie. Good, bad, cheeky, clever, the whole lot. Glad the two of them have each other for company as they grow!

Tokyo DisneySea Day 4

Day 4, we had originally planned to go shopping at Ikspiari, since we only bought a 3-day pass. But it was a beautiful sunny day, compared to the day before. And we thought it'd be such a waste to hide in the mall. So we went to DisneySea again.

First thing we did was queue at for the Big Band performance, which was fabulous. The kids had a little picnic during the 45-min queue.

Then we went for lunch at an Italian outlet, which surprisingly, had pretty good food. The best park food we'd had so far, besides the pretzels and churros.

While waiting for the water show, we spotted Pinnochio and his father, and Goofy walking around.

After the water show, we wanted to go for the gondola cruise. But the wait was 45 min. And Aaron kept pointing to the choo-choo train, saying that he wants to ride the train. But Nadine refused, after being spooked by the dark tunnel and dinosaurs on the train ride at Disneyland. So Daddy brought Aaron for the train ride, while Mummy brought Nadine shopping for more Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck stuff.

That night, we stayed on to catch the night water show. But the fireworks was cancelled due to weather. Pity.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable vacation. Very tiring for Daddy and Mummy, but the smiles and joy on the kids' faces more than made up for the tiredness. It was also an extremely good time of bonding. It was most amusing and amazing to see and hear Aaron pick up so much during the trip, be it knowledge or words. We certainly hope the beautiful memories of this trip will stay with the kids for a long long time!

Tokyo Disneyland Day 3

Day 3, we went back to Disneyland again.

This time round, we got lucky at the entrance upon arrival. The characters were out in full force to take photos with visitors!

Tigger

Piglet 

Pluto 

Jiminy Cricket

Pinnochio 

At the shop, Aaron had loads of fun playing with the trains. So much so that he wouldn't leave, until we bought him a train.

All the rides had really long queues. Mummy did a Dumbo ride with Nadine. After that, we decided to visit Mickey's and Minnie's houses instead. The houses had funny and cute furnishing, like a real house!

One with Mickey's car

After that, we went on the train ride at Adventure Land. Aaron enjoyed every moment of it. He's such a trainspotter now! But Nadine was spooked when we went through a very dark tunnel, where you can't even see your hand in front of you. And there were scary humongous dinosaurs too.

We had wanted to go back to the hotel for a siesta and come back to the park in the evening for the fireworks. But Nadine refused to leave. Guess she was having too much fun. So Daddy brought her to watch the parade again, while Mummy and Aaron hid in one of the restaurants coz it was getting really cold.

After that, we went on the It's a small world ride again. By the time we came out of the ride, the sky was turning dark, and the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees! We quickly headed to Ikspiari, the mall closest to Disneyland, for dinner. The food court at Ikspiari had a kids corner with low tables and chairs, and even a small low sink for the kids to wash their hands! How thoughtful and family-friendly!

Tokyo DisneySea Day 2

On the 2nd day, we went to Tokyo DisneySea, which had a totally different feel from Disneyland. Still as many Disney characters walking around, but the Mediterranean set-up is a lot more adult, and to a certain extent, romantic.

A shot at the entrance. Nadine couldn't wait to run into the park.

Most of the rides at DisneySea are for much older kids, and adults. So we headed straight for the Mermaid Lagoon. Nadine wanted to ride on the puffer fish merry-go-round. So we queued for half an hour for the 20 sec ride.

And the kids enjoyed a Minnie Mouse popsicle after the puffer fish ride.

We then headed for Toy Story Land. The Toy Story ride had queuing time of 240 min! While loitering in the area, and waiting for Aaron to wake up, Nadine took this shot of us.

And we took this family shot, with Aaron still sleeping.

Aaron and Daddy taking a nice stroll.

It was amazing to see 80% of the visitors at the park (mostly Japanese) in all kinds of Disney gear. Most people were wearing some kind of silly Disney headgear - Goofy hat, Mickey Mouse ears, Winnie the Pooh outfit, etc. Lots of Japanese parents dress their kids up. Daddy couldn't resist joking that he didn't know Disneyland hired kids!

Mummy was extremely cold on the first day. So start of Day 2, we bought a least-silly-looking Minnie Mouse headgear. So Daddy decided to let the clown inside him out! We look silly in this photo. But really, at the park, we look like everybody else!