Bonding Time

Sarah will be 4 months old at the end of this month and Caleb is getting more settled having his sister around. When she first arrived, he was interested in her initially (like having a new toy around) but his interest weaned off after a while coz she wasn't very interactive with him (and he did feel a little "threatened" by her appearance in the family). I noticed a positive change in his attitude towards her when I started telling him how much I think she likes him. And it's true. I think Sarah really likes her Korkor very much. She loves watching him play and laugh and she's extremely tickled when he laughs and that will get her chuckling away.

Caleb had asked to carry Sarah and he initially told us that he wanted to carry her for a very long time. When we asked him how long, he said 3 days! Obviously that didn't happen, he couldn't last longer than 5min with her. And from the looks of it, I think mostly it was Caleb having all the fun and Sarah trying to figure out what her Korkor is trying to do to her.

This is me and my Meimei. I like to carry her.
It makes me feel like I'm a big Korkor.


This is how I like to carry her.
Sometimes she's in the middle and sometimes, I sway her to the sides...


Sometimes when she's starting to get heavy...


And squirmy...


I'll give her a tug backwards so that she gets to lean on me!


And sometimes, we'll end up lying on our sides.
Can you see that we're having a lot of fun? Especially me?

Push Ups!

Sarah has been waking up very easily when she takes her naps in the day. When Caleb was more than a month old, a friend taught me to let him sleep on his tummy so that he could sleep longer. I tried it and true enough, he used to nap for 2-3hrs. With Sarah, I tried flipping her on her tummy when she was two months old and she always got upset with me. I decided to try again two weeks ago when she had just fallen asleep, I flipped her onto her tummy and the first time I did that, she napped for 4 hours without waking up! Made me quite worried after a while and I ended up waking her up coz I thought she was sleeping for too long! Anyway, two days after we got her napping on her tummy, she surprised us by pushing herself up and looking round the room after she woke up from her nap. I know we've been depriving everybody of photos so... here's a collage of her doing her push ups and looking mightily pleased with herself.


And here's one with a big, wide smile for everyone.


Does she look like Caleb? We took a series of shots of Caleb when he first started doing his push ups too. I think there's some resemblance. Sarah's really like the female version of Caleb. (Ya, Mummy, what are you talking about? Obviously right?!! Aiyah, just enjoy the photos lah!)

Observant Caleb

Today Ma-ma helped me to pick Caleb up from school. As I needed to just run out of the house for a couple of minutes to wait for Caleb to reach home, I grabbed a t-shirt and changed out of my home clothes. When I brought Caleb home, he pointed at the t-shirt that I was wearing and said to me...

Caleb: Mummy, you got that t-shirt too?
Mummy: (I had actually thrown on one of Daddy's t-shirts that was a little small for him) No, it's Daddy's.
Caleb: Oh... Daddy share with you?
Mummy: Umm...no... you are so observant... I better change out of it. (I couldn't help but smile at him coz he is really super observant. The t-shirt that I had taken was not one that Daddy wore often and he recognised that it belonged to him. It's actually a plain white t-shirt that Daddy got from the recent church camp that Daddy went to.)
Caleb: Umm Mummy, you're not observant... coz you take Daddy's t-shirt to wear...

I was really quite amused coz he actually understands the word observant and tried to apply it in his conversation with me.

And this thing about Caleb's observation skills... I must say he is really quite sharp. He observes what we wear and deduces where we're going. If I change out of my home clothes, he'll come and ask me, "Mummy, where are we going? We're going out?" When Daddy changes into his shirt and pants, he'll ask "Daddy's going to work?" When I wear something new or a piece of clothing that Caleb's never seen before, he'll come and ask me "Mummy, is this new?" And Caleb's observation skills are not limited to just what we wear. When we're out and sitting in the car, he recognises the roads, especially those familiar routes like going to school, church, yeeyee's house, ma-ma's house, grandpa's house etc, and he'll ask whether we're going to these places. Me and Daddy never cease to be amazed at his ability to observe, deduce and make that connection in his mind.

The School Principal

Daddy : Caleb, who teaches you in school?
Caleb : Teacher Beth (former English Teacher, who came back again recently)
Daddy : Does she teach you all the time?
Caleb : Sometimes only
Daddy : How about Teacher Agila? (current English Teacher)
Caleb : Sometimes only
Daddy : How about Hu Lao Shi? (current Chinese Teacher)
Caleb : Sometimes only
Daddy : How about Xie Lao Shi? (Chinese Helper Teacher)
Caleb : Sometimes only
Daddy : How about Mr Pang? (School Principal)
Caleb : Err, no. He scold only.
Daddy, Mummy : Haha
Mummy : Does he scold you?
Caleb : No, because I'm a good boy.

Mathematics

Yesterday...
Caleb : Daddy, can I eat the sweet the please?
Daddy : But it's quite late already.
Caleb : But I want to eat the sweet please.
Daddy : How about we share half-half?
Caleb : Ok, next time I got two sweets, I keep one and I give one to you ok?
Daddy : (wah, outsmarted, try again) No, I mean your one sweet now, I eat half and you eat half.
Caleb : No... only when I got two sweets then I share one with you. Can I eat the sweet now please?
Daddy : (no choice) Ok.

Last night
Caleb : I found another sweet!
Daddy : You said you'll share with me if you got two right?
Caleb : Ok, you can have this one. Eat it now.
Daddy : No, it's too late already, I'll eat it tomorrow.

This morning
Caleb : Daddy, you haven't eaten your sweet yet.
Daddy : It's too early in the morning, I'll eat it later.
After a while...
Caleb : Daddy, if you don't eat your sweet, I'll eat it for you.
Daddy : ?!?! Ok, I'll eat it now.
Caleb : How about we share half-half?
Daddy : ?!?!?!?!
Mummy : grins grins
Daddy : (In view of long term gain) Ok!

Sarah's First Chuckle

Guess who brought on Sarah's first chuckle? Caleb Kor Kor! (applause... applause...)
For the past 3 months, Sarah has only given us lots of smiles... big, wide gummy smiles... tiny little smiles, lazy slanted smiles... anyway, just smiles but no laughter or chuckles.
Last night, I had Sarah seated on my lap while I read a book to Caleb. After I finished the book, Caleb took Sarah's big butterfly rattle and invented some game of his own. He wanted me to pretend to hide his book under Sarah's rattle and we were both supposed to shake the rattle hard to reveal the book. We did this once and Sarah tilted her head backwards and gave a loud chuckle. At first I thought I had heard wrongly and thought that she had choked on her saliva. But coz Caleb was having so much fun and laughing so hard on his own, I realised that each time he repeated his action and laughed, Sarah would chuckle. I'm really not sure what was it that she found so amusing but, believe or not, we were so tickled to hear her chuckle that we repeated our actions for 15min and she didn't stop chuckling for 15min. And in between that time, I could go retrieve my camera, come back, repeat our actions and she continued to respond and appear amused.

Here's my first attempt at capturing her chuckling away. It was a little tough for me coz I had her on my lap and my other free hand was trying to focus on her as well as Caleb.


Daddy who was out, came home in time to catch Sarah chuckling away. He was just as tickled and took another video of her.

The Ka-Li-Pok Man

How do you explain to a 3 yr old that the Ka-Li-Pok man sells curry puffs but he'll not shout out "Curry Puffs!" but "Ka-Li-Pok!" instead?

Well, yesterday evening we were driving into our estate and the Ka-Li-Pok man cycled past us and gave a low throaty shout "Ka-Li-POK!" Caleb stared at him and asked me hesitantly, "Mummy, why that uncle say cu-rry puff?" I think he couldn't really make out what the man was shouting but knew that he was selling curry puffs, so he improvised and imitated the man's tone but he changed it to "Cu-rry puff" instead.

So... this is my explanation to my son...
Mummy: Caleb, he didn't say Cu-rry puff. He said Ka-Li-Pok, but you're right, he is selling curry puffs."
Caleb: Why Mummy? Why he say Ka-Li-POK? (Yes, he is still at the "why?" stage)
Mummy: Umm... because long, long time ago, the curry puff man couldn't speak good english so he couldn't pronounce the word curry puff, so he used to shout out "Ka-Li-Pok" instead. So now whenever he shouts "Ka-li-pok", everybody knows that he's actually selling curry puffs and will come and buy from him. If he shouts "Curry puff" instead, I don't think anybody will buy from him."
Caleb: Why Mummy? (Yes, he has incessant whys...)
Mummy: Maybe if he shouts "Curry puff", people won't think it's nice? People are used to buying curry puffs from the "Ka-li-Pok" man...

Thankfully, we reached our carpark and Caleb got distracted and forgot to continue asking why. Instead he decided to imitated the Ka-li-pok man and started saying "Ka-li-Pok" and laughing about it.

Btw, I also dunno why all the curry puff sellers choose to say "Ka-li-pok" instead of "curry puff". I just made up the explanation myself. Sounds logical right? Or maybe "Ka-li-pok" is actually Malay or Hindi or something? I dunno lah... I'm no history or linguist. Anyway, I'm just glad that I've once again managed to counter the incessant questions that my son's throwing at me nowadays.