Balancing Act

Today's post is going to be an outdated and short one due to Mommy's unexpected workload at office today (calls and quesries from freshies and their parents plus other programme registration problems!)

30th April 2010

Mommy caught Juan Or doing this balancing act. He was playing with the dish coaster, putting it on his head and then stood still to balance it and he did balance it properly. See this!

And this boy, once he knows that Mommy is aiming the handphone camera at him, he cannot concentrate on balancing anymore, but luckily he finally managed it. Watch this:

Happy 2nd Birthday, Juan Or!

Last night, we had our simple celebration of Juan Or's 2nd birthday. It was 7.40 pm and Mommy had just finished deep-frying some party food when Papa arrived home from his outstation work trip.

Then Mommy got Juan Or to wear his home-made party hat for Papa to see. Ta-dah, this is how the party hat looks on Juan Or!

And here's a closer view of the home-made party hat.

After both Papa and Mommy had taken our baths, we were ready to start our humble dinner 'party'. Mommy deep-fried french fries and Ramly chicken nuggets. It was also Mommy's first solo attempt at deep-frying. Mommy managed to catch Juan Or grinning for the camera as he ate his french fries.

As we were eating the deep-fried items, Mommy steamed some otak-otak and thawed a packet of seasoned baby octopus to supplement the party food. Papa and Mommy offered all the food we had to Juan Or but turned out he only knows how to eat french fries - nothing else!

By 9 pm, we were ready to take out the birthday cake. This time, Mommy decided to try a different cake after Aunty Cynthia turned down Mommy's request to order cake from her (Aunty Cynthia has to stop taking cake orders due to her princess being very clingy). It's a jellycake this time after Mommy saw a blogpost from Aunty Nicole Low. The jellycake that Mommy bought from Jelly Cakehouse was a train design priced at RM55. Orders were made online but Mommy drove over to the headquarter office at Damai Perdana (Cheras) to collect the cake.

After lighting the candles, singing birthday song, photo-taking and blowing the candles, Mommy helped Juan Or to cut the cake (sorry, no photos for Mommy to take on the handphone before the cake was cut because Mommy had to hold Juan Or's hands to prevent him from touching the cake and candles and destroying the cake! ^ ^ But Papa did take them on his SLR camera, only thing is the photos have not yet been copied to Mommy's laptop.)  

What next? It's time to wallop the cake, of course!

As expected, since the jelly was slippery, Juan Or just couldn't scoop the jelly onto his spoon, so he ate with his hands instead and then used his sticky fingers to touch here and there on the furniture. *Faint!*

Turned out, Juan Or doesn't know how to eat the jellycake - probably he just can't appreciate the taste. So in the end, Mommy had to finish it for him! Well, in Mommy's opinion, appearance-wise, the jellycake looks very attractive especially for children. In fact, the jellycake is more of a layered jellycake with the coconut milk jelly alternating with the non-coconut milk jelly layer. Mommy guess probably because of the amount of layering work involved, that's why the cake costs RM55 even though it is mostly made up of agar, coconut milk and water. How about taste-wise? Well, nothing oustanding about the taste because it tastes just like normal jelly. After eating the jellycake, it doesn't give you the satisfying and filling effect unlike the normal cakes you buy from cakehouses. So Mommy decided that after this try, Mommy will go back to buying Secret Recipe cakes for birthdays rather than jellycakes. No more jellycakes ever again! Felt like the RM55 spent is not very worth it after all - only good for the eyes to see but doesn't have the oomph factor for the tongue and stomach!

After the cake session, Juan Or became fretful and pestered Papa to go upstairs, so both of them went upstairs while Mommy remained downstairs to clean the dining table, plates and bowls, and the kitchen mess! Mommy was done with the cleaning and washing by 10.30 pm and then went upstairs to join Papa and Juan Or - only to find them.....

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.........dozed off in the master bedroom!

So, Mommy decided to call it a day and went to sleep as well since Mommy had been working non-stop since 5 am. So that's three's a company in our bed!

The next morning, at 4 am, Juan Or woke up in a fretful state. So Mommy tried distracting him, but to no avail. Suddenly Mommy thought about the birthday presents which Juan Or has yet to open because he went to sleep early last night. Immediately, his crying and fretfulness stopped.

This birthday present is from Juan Or's babysitter. It's a bucket of building blocks. Now Juan Or seems to show progress in stacking the building blocks. Previously, he would try to stack them head-to-head or bottom-to-bottom which never worked, but now looks like he's aware of the direction of the blocks.

Then this one's from Juan Or's Third Uncle and Third Aunty from My Little Sprouts!. The present was beautifully wrapped in a Mickey Mouse design wrapping paper and in it is an indoor game set called Safari Hide & Seek. It's a mind-testing and pattern recognition game meant for 6 year olds and above. So Mommy will let Juan Or touch it first, and then keep the toy till he has more maturity to play the game.

Next one's from Aunty Small Kucing who has taken really a lot of effort to courier the present about 2 weeks before Juan Or's birthday arrived. Here's an older photo of Juan Or when he had just received his couriered birthday present.

Only about 2 weeks later did Mommy allow Juan Or to open the birthday present (*wicked grin*). It's a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse magnetic board book which Mommy had been eyeing for for Juan Or when Aunty Small Kucing first mentioned about Book Xcess opening it's new and bigger outlet. Hehehee....now Mommy knows why Aunty Small Kucing asked Mommy before whether Mommy has already gone to Book Xcess to buy the Mickey Mouse book! ^ ^  By the way, Mickey Mouse is Juan Or's favourite character.

Here is Juan Or hurrying Mommy to quickly tear open the plastic film packaging....

.....and then enjoying the Mickey-and-gang magnets more than the story! ^ ^

Then Mommy noticed Juan Or seems to have the liking to arrange things in an orderly array, like this.....

......which Mommy recalled seeing something similar done to the plates of his sushi playset some time back.

There's also a pop-out birthday card given by Juan Or's paternal grandparents. His grandfather has decided to pass his animal fact files collection set to Juan Or (for him to read when he's much older).

Finally, Mommy wishes to thank all readers who have wished Juan Or happy birthday and especially to the babysitter, Third Uncle and Aunty, Aunty Small Kucing and Juan Or's grandparents for the birthday presents. Special thanks goes to Aunty Small Kucing who has dedicated a birthday blogpost to Juan Or in her blog and even invited her readers to cross-over to this blog to wish Juan Or a happy birthday. Mommy thanked you all from the bottom of Mommy's heart. Muah!

Sneak Preview to Juan Or's Humble Birthday Celebration

Tonight Papa and Mommy will be celebrating Juan Or's 2-year-old birthday. The birthday celebration will be just a humble  and simple one.....nothing elaborate and just the three of us. Here' a sneak preview of what Mommy prepared of Juan Or for the celebratioon tonight:

Getting Juan Or to do a simple craft - a party hat! Yes, after reading a few of mummy bloggers' blogposts about getting their little ones to do some crafts, Mommy felt motivated to try out on Juan Or too.

First, Mommy opened up a commercial party hat to draw out the template on a manila card.

Then, cut out the drawn template. Mommy also wrote "I am 2 years old! 12th May 2010" using magic pens.

Next, Mommy got Juan Or to put his 'graffiti' on the hat. Anyway, Mommy was not expecting much from his 'graffiti' because to normal people, the 'graffiti' was more like scribbles. ^ ^

However, Juan Or turned out to be more interested at messing up his colour pencils rather than drawing 'graffitis'!

Then, Mommy cut out one aeroplane picture from an AirAsia advertisement for Juan Or to stick to his party hat.

Mommy also cut out tiny strips of paper from advertisement leaflets to make as frill deco at the pointed end of the hat.

Next, glue the two ends of the hat together. Mommy also gave Juan Or stickers to stick onto the hat as decoration. His stickers are stars and Winnie the Pooh.

And lastly, staple a cut loose rubber band on the bottom sides of the hat and voila, the party hat is ready!

How does the hat look like in the end? Well, Mommy would like to keep it a suspense! Let the birthday boy show you the hat himself! ^ ^

P/S: Mommy's post is rather short today because Mommy has to go collect the birthday cake, pick Juan Or up from the babysitter's house and then rush back to prepare for Juan Or's humble birthday celebration tonight. Stay tuned and ciao!

Juan Or is a Big Boy Now

Yesterday night was the first time Mommy left Juan Or to sleep alone by himself in his own room. It was already 11pm. Juan Or was still in a playful mood and wanted Mommy to read to him, entertain him and play with him. By 11.30pm, Mommy insisted that it was time to lie down in bed and go to sleep and that Mommy was going to switch off the lights. Mommy also reminded Juan Or that for that night onwards, he had to sleep alone in his own bed because he is a big boy now and that Mommy would go sleep in Papa and Mommy's room. He obediently and eagerly nodded his head - no sign of resentment on his part.

So Mommy switched off the light, closed his bedroom door and left his room. At that time, Juan Or was already lying in bed but still awake. Still no resentment or cries on his part. Mommy walked to the master bedroom to join Papa in bed. After a little while, Mommy heard Juan Or's cheeky shout from his room and that was all. Mommy still remained in the master bedroom and finally dozed off. It was a peaceful night and Mommy woke up at 5.10am the next day. Mommy went to Juan Or's room to check on him. Turned out he was still sleeping soundly. Mommy's conclusion: So far so good - getting Juan Or to sleep alone in his own bedroom turned out to be a breeze after all. What a relieve for Mommy! On the other hand, Mommy now misses sleeping together with Juan Or. Tonight Papa will not be at home because Papa has gone outstation and Mommy feels undecided whether or not to sleep with Juan Or tonight since Papa is not around. What do you think?

By the way, on a side note here, Juan Or has 'matured' in thoughts already as in Mommy no longer faces problem in getting him to drink milk. In fact, shortly after we have moved into the new house, Juan Or would tell Mommy when he desires to drink milk. Mommy would prepare the milk and he would drink eagerly. No need for Mommy to bribe him with watching DVD anymore. Or sometimes, we need to be going somewhere, so Mommy would wake him up from sleep and asked him to drink milk. Juan Or, still feeling sleepy, would obediently finish the milk so that we could get going fast (which was not something possible to do when we were still staying with the in-laws)!

Here are photos of Juan Or drinking milk while lying down on the floor. Notice that his limbs are no longer the babyish limbs anymore (Mommy misses that!). He can even lift up and cross his legs while drinking milk - like a big shot! ^ ^

Holding the Chopstick

Yes, Mommy has been very 'silent' from the blogging scene for the past 2 weeks and has probably kept fellow mummy bloggers wondering where and what Mommy was up to. Well, sorry to keep fellow readers waiting and wondering, but Mommy has been very caught up with work obligations. Mommy's busiest time at work are usually at the end of an academic semester right up to the early weeks of a new semester (the next hectic wave is going to happen again at around end of August to early September *hint**hint*). The end of a semester is a hectic one because Mommy has to mark examination papers of the subject Mommy is teaching, plus all the lecturers under Mommy's department will submit their subjects' marks for Mommy to go through and check for consistency before the marks are submitted to a higher level. With the end of the exam season comes the opening of a new semester. The new semester means dealing with semester timetable adjustments, course selection approval and entertaining freshy students who come knocking at Mommy's door about almost continuously from 9am to 5pm! And that leaves Mommy with no time at all to blog about Juan Or. So for the few blogposts to come, Mommy will be reporting on outdated things and events that happen to Juan Or. Here's the first one:

24th April 2010

Juan Or has just acquired the preference for watching Sesame Street rather than those children nursery rhymes and Vege Tales DVDs. One of his favourite Sesame Street episode is "Big Bird in Japan". This episode shows how Big Bird and his dog were left behind by their tour group, so both of them had to find their own way in Japan. There was this scene where Big Bird and his dog went to eat dinner in a Japanese restaurant (Big Bird has money?!!) and the chief waiter showed Big Bird how to use a chopstick. So happen, Juan Or also has a pair of toy chopsticks that came from a sushi playset that Mommy bought from the Litt Tak Warehouse Sale not too long ago. Somehow, by just watching the programme, Juan Or 'learnt' how to hold the chopstick. Mommy didn't know it at first until suddenly, Juan Or came to Mommy to 'show off' what he had just learnt! And Mommy was surprised too he could hold the chopstick properly, i.e., without the sticks crossing each other - a trait that he probably inherited from Papa (shy to say, until today, Mommy still holds the chopstick crossed!).

Since Aunty Small Kucing had asked Mommy whether Juan Or tried holding food with the chopstick, so Mommy decided to include this photo for her benefit. Answer is yes, Juan Or has tried eating rice using the toy chopstick. His grip on the food so far was only limited to holding rice (because he refused to eat other things!). But then, he was lucky that the rice was fragrant rice, so was sticky and the rice stuck easily to the chopstick - not so much on the skill of holding the rice with chopstick, though. Of course there were moments when he couldn't even hold the rice in place, so he cried out in frustration.