Swimming and slippers

As we promised Caleb and Nicole, Mummy and Yee Yee brought them and Mei Mei swimming again this week. Just talk to Caleb about swimming and he'll be really enthusiastic. See video on his views on swimming. Oh and check out his new slippers which Ma-Ma bought for him. He looks really cute wearing them although he tends to stop every 3 steps to make sure that they've not slipped off his feet.

Visit to Botanic Gardens

I've been lagging behind in blogging this. Anyway recently, we managed to squeeze out some time to bring Caleb to Botanic Gardens and spend the morning there. The place is quite nice in the morning and we had a good time walking around, taking LOTS of photos and exploring the garden.

Here's photos that Caleb took with Mummy



More photos of Mummy and Caleb



Daddy had his share of kodak moments with Caleb though much lesser than Mummy

Visit to the Zoo

Last Friday, we followed Nicole Jiejie's playschool on an excursion to the zoo. It was really nice that the teachers allowed Caleb to tag along and it gave him an opportunity to mingle with other children in a school environment.
We arrived at 9am at Nicole Jiejie's school and took the schoolbus with the other children, teachers and accompanying adults to the zoo. Caleb was really excited coz this is the first time that he's going to the zoo and the very first time that he is sitting in a bus.
We didn't get to cover a lot of the attractions at the zoo coz it rained shortly after we reached but we did manage to catch the tram ride and 2 animal shows. And we had lunch at KFC. It was really a treat for Caleb.

Caleb looking apprehensive when he first boarded the bus


Caleb wearing his "stylo milo" hat at the zoo entrance


Hanging out with the other school children whilst waiting for the teachers to purchase the entrance tickets.


On the tram ride round the zoo



Having KFC for lunch. It's the first time that Caleb is having a taste of the food at KFC and drinking packet apple juice! He couldn't wait and kept trying to poke the straw into the tetrapack


Caleb could fit in quite well with Nicole Jiejie's schoolmates and teachers. The teachers thought he has such chubby cheeks, they couldn't resist the temptation to want to pinch them. There was a four year old "ang mo/chinese" girl who took to him quite a bit and kept coming over to try to hold his hand, give him a hug and share her toy handphone with him. During lunch time, she came over after she finished her lunch to talk to Caleb. After fussing over him for a while, she commented to me..." Your baby has such fat cheeks and fat thighs. My younger brother also has very fat cheeks." I took it that she's saying it affectionately.

Caleb with his new friend (the angmo/chinese girl) who kept coming to hold his hand


By early afternoon, we were all extremely tired out. Caleb was starting to nod off but somehow, the minute we got onto the bus, he started to hype himself up and was bouncing up and down his seat. He was actually extremely tired but there are times he's reluctant to go to sleep and he'll start to use up his reserve energy and hang on till we reach home.
We went to Ma-Ma's house (Mummy's mummy) after we got back from the zoo. Mummy gave Caleb his afternoon milk and he totally knocked out whilst drinking his milk.

Here's Caleb half asleep whilst drinking his milk beside Mei Mei. See how much bigger he is now as compared to Mei Mei.

Caleb - Superband?

Recently, we were at Mummy's good friend's (Auntie Joy, you've seen her photo before) house for a party and even before we arrived, there was already a crowd anticipating Caleb's arrival. Auntie Joy's friends are avid fans of Caleb and have frequently followed his progress in this site, not less because both Joy and Grace (Joy's sister) has helped publicise for Caleb.

Here's pictures of the fan club :)


They had seen much of Caleb's dancing videos and were all eager to see him perform. Though he wasn't on his best form, he still managed to draw oohs and ahhs. We didn't manage to capture his dances, but here's him basking in the attention.


And being the true performer, after his show, he went around interacting with the crowd individually, just to show his appreciation for their support, and of course at the same time enjoying all the goodies and food that they were giving him :)


Once again, I'm reminded of God's grace :) For those who know me, you'll know I'm no where as cute as Caleb, and yet God provided such a cute one. Wife would of course say it's her genes (I wouldn't argue against that, you should check out her new hairstyle... looking stunning :)).

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've blogged (my wife does remind me of that :)). Well, I just feel that she's been doing such a good job so I'm continually encouraging her to do more. :)
I enjoy taking so many photos of Caleb that sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the volume of it :). So here are some photos which have been taken quite a while back, as some of the photographed persons would attest to.

Caleb spent an afternoon out with his grandparents and had much fun with looking at all the fishes in the pond and running around while his grandpa chases.














Caleb with Daddy's and Mummy's Uni friends. Both these aunties have affectionately funny nicknames which I shan't mention here :)














Posted this photo cos I think he looks quite "shuai" (handsome) here.




















We think he's got quite long eye lashes, and the more amazing thing is that they curl upwards by themselves, so no need for crimpers and mascara!

Swimming again!

After a break of 5 months, Caleb is finally back at swimming. The last few months, every time we think of going swimming, one of us would fall sick or it would rain or it was a busy week so we just didn't get down to going swimming.
So on Monday, Mummy and Yee Yee packed the children's swimming things and we went swimming with Nicole, Caleb and Natalie. Mummy was a little worried about how Caleb would react to swimming again since it has been a while. Well, when Caleb first got into the water, he was DELIGHTED! He started squealing and splashing around and absolutely loved it.
The original plan was for Yee Yee to leave Mei Mei Natalie sleeping in the stroller next to the pool while the two mummies got into the pool with the two toddlers. However, Mei Mei had other plans and started crying for milk when we reached the pool so Mummy had the task of handling 2 small toddlers in the pool. To Mummy's surprise, it was not as challenging as she thought it would be. Maybe it helped that we had the whole pool to ourselves. The only thing was that you have to have super sharp eyes and strong arms.
Here's Mummy and the two cousins having fun in the pool.



We had so much fun, we decided that we shall go swimming again next week!

Self Awareness

On one of the "Child of Our Times" series, there was an episode on self awareness. Apparently children develop self awareness around the age of 18 months. That's when there's a sudden "explosion" in their head and they realise who they are and start making demands for themselves and test your patience day and night (just joking, I'm really praying that God will give us the wisdom to teach Caleb well if that really happens. Anyway, this is also commonly known as the start of the "Terrible Two".
There was this experiment that they did in the series where they drew a red dot on the child's forehead and placed the child in front of a mirror. Those children who have developed self awareness, stared at the mirror and touched their forehead where the red dot was. Those children who have not developed self awareness, tried to walk behind the mirror to look for the "other" child with the red dot on the forehead.
Last week, Mummy was "entertaining" Caleb while waiting for Daddy in the car. Caleb was playing with a sticker and was sticking the sticker on himself. Mummy decided to experiment and stuck the sticker on Caleb's forehead and gave him a mirror to look.
He doesn't seem to have fully developed self awareness yet. We think that he recognises himself coz he has looked at the mirror and told us that was him when we asked him. But he seemed to think that the sticker is stuck behind the mirror or somewhere below coz he kept flipping the mirror over and he checked his legs to see if the sticker was there.
Well, we're in no hurry for him to develop his self awareness but it was quite fun for us to watch his reaction :)

Vitagen

I've been quite "kiasu" about introducing "sugary" drinks to Caleb so I've kinda been holding back on the kind of drinks that he's exposed to. Somehow I have this phobia that he will develop a sweet tooth and not want to drink good old plain water any more. And, people say that you need to cultivate good eating habits from young so that's what I'm trying to do!Anyway, at 15 months, Caleb has drank mainly plain water, milk, occassionally home cooked barley water without any sugar and once a blue moon, he gets soya bean milk with less sugar.
Last week, at Yee Yee's house, she was appalled at how "deprived" little Caleb is. Yee Yee had some Vitagen (with less sugar) in her fridge so Mummy relented and gave Caleb a bottle to try.

After Caleb took 1 sip, he just didn't want to stop drinking the nice, sweet, cold Vitagen. And the "kiasuism" in Mummy kicked in coz it seemed unthinkable for Caleb to drink up the whole bottle of Vitagen on his own. So Mummy asked Caleb to let her drink some in a bid to drink up as much as she can get from the bottle.
See how Caleb reacts when Mummy wouldn't let go of the straw.


And guess what? After that episode, Caleb became very protective of his Vitagen and refused to share any with Mummy anymore. Mummy persisted in asking for more Vitagen but Caleb told Mummy to move away and then started ignoring Mummy.
Looks like Vitagen has taken a higher place in his heart over Mummy!

Playtime!

Caleb has always preferred to play with Daddy. I think it's because the games that Daddy play with him are more exciting and action packed. Here's a vidz of Daddy playing with Caleb. After a while, Caleb is just laughing himself silly.


Well, Mummy does play with Caleb too. Just a little more sedated and less action packed. Caleb does seem to enjoy playing with Mummy too, though he may not laugh as long or as loud. But hey, what matters is that we all have fun together right!

Song Dedication

I've been wanting to blog this for quite a while but didn't get down to doing it. As we mentioned, Caleb simply loves music and this includes wanting us to sing him to sleep. When he was about 9 months, he started demanding us to sing to him when he wants to go to sleep. He'll cry and the minute we start singing, he'll quieten down and if we stop, he'll start wailing again.
Just before Caleb turned one, he started to do song dedication. He started with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Mummy had sang it to him with actions and he loved it. So when he wanted Mummy to sing the song, he repeated the star action by opening and closing both his palms. Along the months, there were other action songs that Mummy sang, and he started to add to his collection of songs that he could dedicate.
It took us little guessing to understand his hand signals at first and he would go "no no" or cry if we sang the wrong song.
So now, Caleb has developed standard hand signs to tell us what song he wants us to sing. So here's how he tells us what song to sing:

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star - open and close both hands
London Bridge is falling down - wave his hand downwards (to show the bridge falling)
He's Able - clap his hands
10 Little Indian Boys - stick out 1 finger and shake it
Doe-a-Deer - stick out 1 finger and waves it up and down (like a conductor)
Barney Song - If he has his Barney soft toy with him, he'll squeeze Barney's body. (Caleb first got introduced to Barney by Nicole Jie Jie. She has a Barney soft toy which would sing Barney song when you squeeze the body. Grandma went to buy Caleb a Barney soft toy as well but his can't sing. Nevertheless, Caleb wouldn't take "no" for an answer and would squeeze Barney's body and insist that we sing the song everytime he squeezes Barney. Luckily for Mummy, last month or so, Caleb decided that he only wants Daddy to sing him Barney song so Daddy has to keep repeating the song until Caleb falls asleep)
Every Move I Make - Caleb will say "Na,na,na" which is the chorus of the song

His all time favourites are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, His Able and Barney Song(when his Barney soft toy is with him).

Love Mei Mei Natalie

With the arrival of Mei Mei Natalie, Mummy and Caleb have been spending a lot of time at Yee Yee's house playing with Jie Jie Nicole and Mei Mei Natalie. Okay...okay, actually the playing part is more of snatching toys with Jie Jie Nicole and staring at Mei Mei Natalie.
Anyway, Mummy's been observing Caleb's reaction towards his new Mei Mei and in general, the boy knows that he has to be gentle with her and seems to accept her but, if he sees Mummy carrying Mei Mei, he will immediately raise his arms and start going "Bao Bao! Bao bao!" (Carry in Mandarin). There were a few occasions where Mei Mei was crying coz it was milk time and Mummy went to carry her. That got Caleb quite upset and he tried to climb onto Mummy's lap and push Mei Mei away. Mummy tried to reason with him that Mei Mei's crying that's why Mummy needs to carry her for a while but he was too busy wailing away to listen to any reasoning.
Well, it turns out that Caleb is still quite possesive of Mummy and he doesn't like Jie Jie Nicole or Mei Mei Natalie to be carried by Mummy. The only exceptions are when he is distracted by some toys or when there's Daddy or maybe Ma-Ma (that's what he calls Mummy's mummy) around to carry him.
Anyhow, here's a video of Caleb showing his affections towards Mei Mei.
You can hear Mummy sounding a bit "kan Cheong" coz Caleb's so much bigger than Mei Mei and Mummy's worried that he'll squash her with his weight.

No More Already!

This evening Caleb was sitting with Daddy eating his dinner and watching Hi-5 (ya, bad tactic but we let him watch TV during meal times in the hope that he will be so engrossed, he'll eat up whatever we feed him...) Anyway, Caleb finished watching Hi-5 and then he said "No More All-lay-Dee!" (He says it in such a way that "All" can be heard, "Lay" is very soft, and ends with a loud "DEE!") We were surprised that he said that coz it's the first time that he says the full word "already" and the first time that he's combining it with other words that he knows. Daddy asked him to say it one more time for Mummy to hear and he did.
And later in the evening, Caleb's Godpa who was visiting him, was going home and when he walked towards the door, again Caleb said "No more all-lay-dee"
(Caleb likes to say "No more" whenever he loses sight of the person or thing that he was looking at. When Daddy leaves for work and I ask him where's Daddy, he'll say "No more")
And at bedtime, Caleb saw Mummy's glasses beside the pillow and wanted to play with it. Mummy swiftly hid her glasses under her pillow and Caleb went "oh... No more all-lay-dee"

A Long Day Out

We had a long and tiring day on Sunday. For the 2nd time, Caleb missed all his naps for the day(the first time was on his birthday). We went to church and after church, we went to the RSAF Open house. Daddy wanted to bring Caleb to look at planes (coz it's a "boy" thing to do) so off we went together with Grandpa. It was a really hot day but nevertheless, Caleb enjoyed himself. He was a little apprehensive at first when we first put him next to the fighter planes but he got over it quickly and started touching the planes and choppers.

Grandpa, Daddy and Caleb at the entrance.

The crowd waiting to get in. It was so hot that most people had to carry umbrellas to shield off the heat, including us!

Familee photo

Daddy and Caleb checking out a helicoptor model


After RSAF Openhouse, we went to visit Uncle Andy and Auntie Charlene at their new house and then we went to Gallop Stables at Pasir Ris Park in the evening. It's the first time that Caleb is seeing a real horse.


We spent some time looking at the horses and ended the evening sitting at an open field in the park just doing people watching. We tried to get Caleb to walk on the grass at the field without his shoes on but he just refused to maybe coz it the grass didn't feel familiar to him.
Here's Caleb persistently saying "no"


And here's Daddy trying very hard to get Caleb interested in touching the grass


It was a long and tiring day for us, but we had fun!

New Words For The Week

The new words that Caleb started saying this week are "bottle", "horse" and "carpet".
For the last two weeks, he has been pointing to his milk bottle or any bottle at home and saying "bot" and we'll reinforce by saying "bottle". Over the last few days, he just burst out and said "Bot...tle" when he saw his milk bottle. He seems to know that it's a new word that he has managed to say and has been practising saying "bottle". And I must say he's getting better at it.
Over the weekend, we brought Caleb to Gallop Stables and he saw a real horse(actually it's a pony). Previously when we showed him pictures of horses, he either had no response or if we asked him where the horse was, he may point to the right animal. After the visit to Gallop Stables, it seemed to have left an impression on him coz now, he can look at a picture of a horse and say "horse". So I guess, nothing beats seeing the real thing.
And last night, we went grocery shopping and we bought a non slip mat to put outside the bathroom. And all of a sudden, Caleb just pointed to the mat and said really loudly "Carpet!" Both Mummy and Daddy were stunned coz it's not a word that we had reinforced to Caleb before so we were both wondering where did that come from??!!

Music and Rhythm

One of the things we discovered about Caleb is his interest in music and rhythm. He generally enjoys music and never fails to start dancing when the music is more upbeat. He is also very interested in the musical instruments that make the music. Maybe it's just natural reaction for all children but that's probably one thing that we'll continue observing as he grows older.
Well, one thing we're quite sure of though, and that is he has a very good listening ear and can catch beats and rhythm pretty well. Sometimes when he hears upbeat music and starts dancing, he'll hit his thighs with both hands along with the beat.

For now, Caleb has been exposed to Daddy's guitar. He loves running into Daddy's study whenever he gets a chance to pluck at the guitar strings. And I must say he plucks quite well for a 15 month old. See video below and if you listen carefully, you can hear him say "guitar"


And here's Caleb hitting away on drums at Uncle Darius' house


And here's Caleb with his keyboard. Just switch on the demo music and you'll see him swinging into action with his dance