29 May 2008 - Jerlene looks different

Just wanted to post a pic of Jerlene wearing a hat. Somehow I find this pic does not look like her. Is it because my smiley princess is not smiling? Maybe......... What do you think?

24 May 2008 - Just another day at Suntec

We were at Suntec City today and at about 4pm, we went to the Doughnut Factory for afternoon tea. Jerlene loves doughnut very much and she can finish one all by herself. As there is no baby chair in the cafe, she kept wanting to walk around. As usual, she is very friendly to everyone and she walked table to table to make friends. She really has full of expression. When she wants to make friend, she will give this look.......
And when she wants to ask for something, she will give a pitiful look.......very much like the cat in Shrek.....haha.....dun you think so?

Anyway, after having our afternoon tea, we went up to the children's area, Playground@Suntec. Jerlene became a happy driver there........

19 May 2008 - Jerlene learns to swim

Today is Vesak Day and my sister brought her baby boy Marcus to my place for a swim. This was his first time so initially, he's a bit scared, just like Jerlene's first time. But after a while, he started getting used to the water and seems to enjoy it.

Jerlene on the other hand is pretty "seasoned" in the pool already. The moment I put her down in the pool, she started splashing and splashing. She refused to be put in the float that Marcus was using above. The swim vest that we bought for her recently also does not "function" well. When Jerlene is in the water with the swim vest, somehow it will make her lie flat on the surface of the water.....very funny. I thought Jerlene would be scared in that position, but I was wrong. She totally does not care though I felt a bit uncomfortable for her. She's happy as long as she's in the pool.

Today Jerlene has a bit of achievement in her swim. She knows how to kick her legs in the water and stroke her hands at the same time. These are the basic steps for swimming. I do not recall I have taught her these techniques so I guessed she has picked up these skills by observing others how to swim. GREAT WORK JERLENE AND KEEP IT UP!!!!! :-)

18 May 2008 - Bubbles Treat

It has been quite a while since I last played bubbles with Jerlene. I decided to take out the bubbles gun today and see if Jerlene still likes it. And you bet, she loves it. We had hours of fun playing with bubbles and Jerlene kept wanting more. Now that she knows where I kept the bubbles gun, she every now and then will lead me to it. You can see lots of different actions from Jerlene while playing with bubbles. Here are just some of them.......

17 May 2008 - Dinner at SAF Yacht Club Sembawang

We had dinner at the SAF Yacht Sembawang near Senoko. There is a restaurant by the seaside. Although this location is a bit "ulu", the restaurant is quite crowded by about 7pm. This is the first time Jerlene came to this place and she was quite excited when we brought her around. The was a mini carousel ride where Jerlene had a little fun.

16 May 2008 - Bob Hairstyle

Jerlene got a new haircut today. We brought her to a hair salon where Tracy used to go. The hairdresser asked what hairstyle we want and obviously we are not sure. So he recommended Bob hairstyle and said it will look cute for little children. We agreed and he started doing the haircut for Jerlene. Jerlene did not cry but kept turning her head, really challenging to cut her hair. This is the so call "Bob hairstyle".

In the evening, we went to Tampines Safra where I had a bowling competition. Jerlene again became the center of attraction and Auntie Tina kept carrying her all around the bowling alley. I guessed Jerlene now knows more SIA staff than I do. Anyway, our team won the competition and actually, I got the highest score (206) for that competition. However, I only got the prize for team event. The prize for highest score is only meant for those non-competitive players.....stupid rule right...... Anyway it's ok, at least the games are free.

15 May 2008 - Hi-5 moves and Peek-A-Boo

I'm very glad that Jerlene has started picking up a lot of new development recently. One main improvement is her skill of imitation. Nowadays, I just need to show her some actions a few times, she can remember and imitate. For instance, I always make those dance steps from some of the Hi-5 video in front of her and now, she can do at least 4-5 of those moves. When I sing some of those Hi-5 songs, she started dancing the different moves depending on which songs I sing. Some of the songs are "Big Red Roo", "Are we there yet", "Funky Punky Rocker", "Pretending day", "Romping Stomping T-Rex" etc etc.......

Other than music and dance, Jerlene has also learnt how to play several hand games. I'm sure some of you would have played a game called "Bing Bom Bing Bom Bing Bing Bom" during your childhood days. The words go like this:
"Bing Bom Bing Bom Bing Bing Bom
左睡右睡 高高低低 前前后后
Cherry Cherry Lom Chiam Pass"
The moment I said the first line, she will place her hand on her cheek and tilt her head sideway, very very cute.

Another trick that she has just learnt is Peek-A-Boo!!!! Watch this video to see how she do it.

12 May 2008 - Jerlene and her space

Jerlene finally decided to "own" her play yard. Recently, when she walked into her play yard, she will close the door and wave bye bye at us. Previously, she refused to even go into the play yard. My guess is after we have installed a kitchen set in her play yard, she started going in to do some cooking. And slowly that become her space and she loves it.

11 May 2008 - Trip to East Coast Park

Today is the actual Mother's Day. Tracy said that she had a little bit of craving for the laksa from Oldtown White Coffee cafe along East Coast Parkway (at the old Big Splash). So, that's where we headed for lunch today.

When we reached there, it was a little crowded but the people come and go, so we managed to get a seat without having to wait for too long. Tracy ordered her laksa while I ordered nasi lemak. After lunch, we went to the upper floor of the building where there is a place similar to Go Go Bambini. It's called Frisk 'n' Romp PlayClub.
There is a playmaze, which is similar to Go Go Bambini, and also playgroup sessions similar to Gymboree. Initially, we thought of bringing Jerlene in for a freeplay at the playmaze but the charge is by per 1hr session, which cost $12 for kids below 2yrs old. It's a lot more expensive than Go Go Bambini in which we only pay $6 for whole day. As such, we decided to give it a miss and instead we walked to the beach.
This is the first time Jerlene saw the sea. However, she's not very excited about the sea. She's more focus on the sandy ground and she kept kicking the sand while running around. I tried to catch her but she kept running away, as if we were playing catching. We had some fun there before heading to town to buy some groceries at Carrefour.

10 May 2008 - Mother's Day celebration

Today, quite a number of my relatives and cousins all gathered at my auntie's place for a little celebration of mother's day. There are many mommies there and of course, there were quite a few "little ones" as well. Jerlene kept walking up and down the steps and made everyone who looked after her very tiring. My mother suddenly took out a wooden chair (see pic below) and said that I'm the first who sat on that chair when I'm very small. In other words, this chair has been around for more than 30 years and most of my cousins have sat on it before. Now is the turn of the next generation I guess and hopefully it will continue to pass down.

Jerlene even performed a magic act on the chair. Here are some of the photoshots. :-)

We ordered a huge mango cake (3 kg) and the shop said that it used about 10 mangoes in total. Everyone enjoyed it, including Jerlene.

4 May 2008 - We are BACK at Go Go Bambini!

As I've mentioned in one of my previous post, we are back at Go-Go Bambini after the trip to the fish farm. And this time round, I remembered to bring my camera. I can see that Jerlene has gained more confidence in her walking, climbing and balancing. However, she seems to have forgotten how to crawl. At certain station where she should be crawling, she tried to balance her standing instead.

I remembered in the last visit, she's a bit scared while in the ball pool. But this time, she's very comfortable. She even submerged herself in the balls up to her neck. One thing Jerlene can do well is aiming and throwing. I am serious........ In the ball pool, she just picked up balls and threw them towards her "intended" target, even at a distance. I saw many other kids of her age can't even throw the ball properly. Some threw backwards, some threw way out and most just dropped the balls in front of them. Actually all along, Tracy and I thought that Jerlene should be a good basketball player next time because there was once when we were at an Arcade, there were several people playing at the basketball machines. Jerlene was initially running around but when she saw that, she just stood very still on the spot and watched the people throwing basketball. She stood there for very long and even refused to leave. In the end, I had to forcefully carry her out of the arcade.

Anyway, we had lots of fun and below are some pics that we had taken.

On yah, I've also taken a video (below) of Jerlene performing her balancing act.

4 May 2008 - A visit to Qian Hu Fish Farm

It has been quite sometimes since we last visited Qian Hu Fish Farm and this is Jerlene's first trip there. When we reached the farm, Jerlene was asleep as usual after a car ride. We just walked around and in about 20mins time, Jerlene woke up. It took a while for Jerlene to adjust to a new environment and once she's comfortable, she just walk around as if she owns the place.

Jerlene has always liked fish ever since we brought her to Sydney Aquarium last Oct. The difference is at that time she can only stand but now, she runs!!!! There was a fish gallery where rows and rows of fish tank with all sorts of fishes were on both sides. Jerlene went wild seeing the fishes and ran up and down the rows. We tried so hard to keep up the pace with her and she does not seem to feel tired. Then there was a moment when she stood/squatted in front of a fish tank, point at the fishes, ran to the next tank, point at the fishes, ran to the next tank, and it went on and on. Very cute! Below pic Jerlene a bit "heow" right? :-P

Overall, this was a great visit. Should be going there quite often since it's not too far from our place via the highway.

3 May 2008 - Kids having fun and Jerlene trying to make friends

Ok the previous post was a bit worrying about Autism but I shall just put that aside for now. After the PD appointment, we went to Novena Square/Velocity for lunch and after which, we walked over to United Square. There was a Toys-R-Us Star member sale going on but I could not find anything appealing for Jerlene. We then walked to a place where there were a few kids having fun with some images on the floor projected by a projector on the ceiling. There seems to be motion detector as well because the images will react to your movement. For example, when a ball appears on the floor, you can actually kick it and it will flew forward. There's another one whereby flowers will appear on the spot where you stepped on. Quite interesting innovation.

Anyway, Jerlene too was having fun. See the boy in green T-shirt above? He's actually very kind by sharing his toys with Jerlene earlier. And when he saw Jerlene having fun with the floor images, he also joined in. He acted like a big gor gor taking care of her while playing. Jerlene tried to make friend with others too (which you can see in the following video). Seeing the first part where she tried to socialize makes me feel a bit relieve but the second part when she started shouting, I'm not so sure again......sigh...... :-(

3 May 2008 - Concern on Autism

Jerlene is scheduled for MMR injection today. Our appointment is at 10am and as usual, by the time it reaches our turn, it's already 11 plus. Jerlene's growth is still on her own curve at about 25 percentile. So she's probably under the smaller build type. Her mobility development is also ok but there is one thing that the PD (Dr Lee) has a little concern. And that is Jerlene is ignoring people quite a bit. When we call her name, she will usually ignore it, which is what happened in the clinic. And because of this, I'm not even sure whether she knows who or what is papa and mama, although she can say it. Sometimes when we go out of the room, she will call papa and mama but there are also times when she looks at Tracy and call papa or even pointing at herself and call papa.

According to Dr Lee, ignoring her name and not able to differentiate papa and mama distinctively at month 15 may be a sign of autism. As such, she wants us to observe her more and see whether there is any improvement in the next visit in three months time. And because of this, Dr Lee suggested that we hold on to the MMR injection because in the recent years, there have been some debates saying that Autism could be caused by the MMR jab. So instead, Jerlene only took the chicken pox vaccination this time round. She did not cry at all from the jab because she's very easily distracted.

After this appointment, both Tracy and I are a bit concern and the moment we went home, we started researching on the topic of Autism. The more we read, the more fear we have because Jerlene has indeed shown quite a number of the signs for Autism. I'm a bit surprised by some of the symptoms that I read because I've always thought many babies/toddlers will like to do such things. For example, toe walking and repetitively doing the same thing may be symptoms of autism. Also, I've always thought that Autistic people usually do not like to socialize but according to the study, it is not true. In fact they like to socialize and make good friends but what they aim for is quality rather than quantity.

Looking at the below two pictures, I'll never thought they suffer from Autism.

To me they seems normal, in fact, I will think they are quite intelligent. According to study, repetitively stacking or lining up objects may indicate autism. Scary right.......I believe there could be many parents who do not know that their kids are suffering from Autism.

If you want to read more about Autism, click here.
And below is a video on How to spot signs of Autism.

1 May 2008 - "Nua-ing" at home on Labouy Day

For those people who do not understand what is "nua-ing", it means idling, resting, slacking etc..... Got it? Labour Day is supposedly meant for workers like us to rest and so we did exactly that today. :-P

Actually it feels great "nua-ing" at home sometimes rather than going out. There may be people who feel that it is a waste of time resting at home whole day but for people like me who are quite stressful at work, I can even take leave sometimes just to rest at home. That feeling is actually not too bad.

Anyway, with Jerlene around us is mostly fun. Although we are at home, we still have sufficient rest and fun throughout the day. What makes today quite stressless for me is because tomorrow is Fri already and the next two weeks, I'll be on reservist, which usually will be less stressful than at work. Hopefully it's the same this time round. :-)